We soon overtook the party—­and had proceeded with it, some distance, when a soldier of the mounted police came up, and delivered to me a letter, from the military secretary at Sydney, informing me by command of the Acting Governor, that George Clarke—­alias The Barber (The Bushranger) had sawed off his irons, and escaped from the prison at Bathurst.  This intelligence was meant to put me on my guard respecting the natives, for from the well-known character of the man, it was supposed, that he would assemble them beyond the settled districts, with a view to drive off the cattle of the colonists—­and especial caution would be necessary to prevent a surprise from natives so directed, if, as most people supposed, his story of the great river, had only been an invention of his own, by which he had hoped to improve his chance of escape. (See Appendix 1.1.)

Burning hill of Wingen.

At three P.M. we reached a spot favourable for encamping, the Kingdon brook forming a broad pool, deep enough to bathe in, and the grass in the neighbourhood being very good.  The burning hill of Wingen was distant about four miles.  This phenomenon appears to be of the same character as that at Holworth, in the neighbourhood of Weymouth, described by Professor Buckland and Mr. De la Beche in the following terms:  “It is probable that in each case rainwater acting on iron pyrites has set fire to the bituminous shale; thus ignited it has gone on burning at Holworth unto the present hour, and may still continue smouldering for a long series of years, the bitumen being here so abundant in some strata of the shale, that it is burnt as fuel in the adjoining cottages; the same bituminous shale is used as fuel in the village of Kimmeridge, and is there called Kimmeridge coal."* Wingen, the aboriginal name, is derived from fire.  The combustion extends over a space of no great extent (see Plate 5) near the summit of a group of hills, forming part of a low chain which divides the valley of Kingdon Ponds from that of Page’s River.  Thin blue smoke ascends from rents and cracks, the breadth of the widest measuring about a yard.  Red heat appears at the depth of about four fathoms.  No marks of any extensive change appear on the surface, near these burning fissures, although the growth of large trees in old cracks on the opposite slope, where ignition has ceased, shows that this fire has continued for a very considerable time, or that the same thing had occurred at a much earlier period.  In the form of the adjacent hills I observed nothing peculiar, unless it be a contraction not very common of the lower parts of ravines.  The geological structure is, as might be expected, more remarkable.  Other summits of the range are porphyritic,** but the hills of Wingen present a variety of rocks, within a small space.  In the adjacent gullies to the south of the hill, we find clay of a grey mottled appearance, and shale containing apparently a small quantity of