(Footnote.  See description of this plant as discovered in a better state on the banks of the Murray, Volume 2 Chapter 3.6.  June 5.  Gyrostemon.)

ASCEND D’URBAN’S GROUP.

I ascended the highest and most southern summit, anxiously hoping to obtain a view of Dunlop’s range.  The view was most satisfactory.  I beheld a range, the first I had seen since I lost sight of Harvey’s.  It was extensive and descended towards the river from the south-east, being a different kind of feature from the various detached hills which cannot form basins for rivers on these dead levels, nor even supply springs.

PROMISING VIEW TO THE SOUTHWARD.

Dunlop’s range certainly was not high, but its undulating crest, vanishing far in the south-east, showed its connection with the high ground south of the Bogan; and a long line of smoke skirting its northern base afforded fair promise of some river or chain of ponds near which a native population could live.  The course of the Darling was clearly marked out by its extensive plains and the darker line of large trees vanishing far in the west.  Beyond, or westward of the river, no high ground appeared, no Berkley’s range as shown on the map, unless it might be a slight elevation, so very low and near as to be visible above the horizon, only from the foot of the hill on which I then stood.  A few detached hills were scattered over the country between me and the Bogan; and of these Oxley’s Tableland was the most remarkable, being a finer mass by far than Mount Helvelyn.  This ridge, the features of which are rather tame, consists of two hills (a and b) the principal or southern summit (a) being 910 feet, the other 660 feet, above the plain at their base.  These heights are 2 1/2 miles from each other, which distance comprises the whole extent of D’Urban’s group, in the line of its summits between north-east and south-west.

The steep and rocky face of the ridge thus formed is towards the river, or westward.  Eastward lower features branch off, and are connected by slight undulations with some of the otherwise isolated hills in that quarter.  Towards the base is a very fine-grained sandstone, and at the summit I found a quartzose rock, possessing a tendency to break into irregular polygons, some of the faces being curved.  There are a few stunted pines on the higher crest, but the other parts are nearly bare.  The highest point of Helvelyn (which I take to be the southern summit) is distant from the nearest bend of the Darling 17 2/6 miles, on a line bearing 151 degrees from North, and from the highest part of Oxley’s Tableland, which bears 43 degrees from North (variation 6 degrees 30 minutes East) it is distant 39 miles.  At this summit the western extremity of Dunlop’s range forms with Oxley’s Tableland an angle coinciding with the general course of the Darling, which flows through the adjacent plains at an average distance of about 16 miles from each of these points.