[* Calotis SCAPIGERA (Hook. MSS.); stolonifera glaberrima, foliis omnibus
radicalibus lineari-spathulatis, scapo nudo monocephalo, achenii aristis
robustis subulatis retrorsum pilosis apice rectis vel uncinatis.--A very
distinct species. Habit of BRACHYSTEPHIUM SCAPIGERUM D. C.: but that
ought to have no aristae to the achenium: here the awns are very stout in
proportion to the size of the capitulum.]

1ST MARCH.--When, fifteen years before, I visited this river at a higher
point where it was called the Karaula [*], no trace of hoofs of horses or
bullocks had been previously imprinted on the clayey banks. Now, we found
it to be the last resource of numerous herds in a dry and very hot
season, and so thickly studded were the banks of this river with cattle
stations, that we felt comparatively at home. The ordinary precautionary
arrangements of my camp against surprise by savage natives seemed quite
unnecessary, and, to stockmen, almost ridiculous. We had at length
arrived at the lowest drain of that vast basin of clay absorbing many
rivers, so that they lose themselves as in the ocean. Here the final
outlet or channel of the waters of the Macquarie, was but a muddy ditch
one might step across, which the magnificent flood we had seen in the
same river above the marshes was not at all likely to reach. That flood
had gone to fill thousands of lagoons, without which supply, those vast
regions had been unfit for animal existence. Here we discover another
instance of that wonderful wisdom which becomes more and more apparent to
man, when he either looks as far as he can into space, or attentively
examines the arrangement of any matter more accessible to him. The very
slight inclination of the surface of these extensive plains seems finely
adapted to the extremely dry and warm climate over this part of the
earth. If the interior slope of the land from the eastern coastranges
were as great as that in other countries supplying rivers of sustained