CROSS THE DARLING.

I accordingly crossed the Darling with four men, and proceeded straight for the hill over a very open country and plains which were tolerably firm.  On my way however I saw nothing new as to ground.  The clay plains were bounded by a ridge of red sand (extending south-west and north-east) at a distance of four miles.  On this ridge were divers casuarinae and beyond it was a low polygonum hollow, and a watercourse in which water evidently sometimes ran north-east (!) and a duck-net stake, fixed opposite to a tree, still remained there.  It appeared that in all these side channels or tributaries of the Darling the water flowed upwards, or FROM the river, a circumstance not unlikely to happen where the main channel rolls the accumulated waters of distant regions through absorbent plains on which partial rains can have but little effect.

At about eight miles we reached firm gravel consisting of small and very hard stones, precisely similar in character and position to that near Mount Murchison.  The pebbles were mixed with red earth which also formed part of the lower features connected with the height before us.  We crossed a deep gully, the bed of a creek in rainy seasons, but which had now been long dried up.  The very hard sandstone still appeared, weathered to a purple colour; the lower part was most ferruginous, and not so hard as above; in the creek below I observed a red crust of clay and nodules of ironstone.

NEW SPECIES OF CASSIA.

There were several rocky and deep ravines in the side of the principal height, and in these the oat-grass, or anthisteria, appeared (for the first time since we had left the upper Bogan) also several plants which were new to me, and among them a bush of striking beauty, with a rich yellow flower, being a species of cassia.*

(Footnote.  This plant was found by Mr. Cunningham in 1817 on Mount Flinders, when he called it C. teretifolia.  Dr. Lindley had described it as follows: 

C. teretifolia, Cunningham manuscripts; incano-tomentosa, foliis pinnatis 5-6-jugis eglandulosis:  foliolis teretibus filiformibus obtusis, paniculis terminalibus, ramulis corymbosis sub-5-floris, bracteolis ovatis obtusis concavis calycibusque tomentosis.)

VIEW FROM THE SUMMIT OF MOUNT MACPHERSON.

The summit of Mount Macpherson was clear but did not afford the view I expected.  The height consisted of some ridges which did not appear much higher further to the westward:  those in that direction being connected with the summit, and also with each other, and extending to the north and south, prevented me from seeing almost any of the features observed from Mount Murchison, which hill was barely visible.  The only striking feature I could perceive east of the Darling was Greenough’s group, which rose upon the horizon, level on that side, save where one or two summits of the higher ground to the eastward just appeared to break the sharpness of the bounding