(Footnote.  Cernua bidyana.)

(**Footnote.  Plotosus tandanus.)

HEAVY RAIN.

April 2.

The rain continued through the night and this morning it fell rather heavily, so that enough of water could be gathered from the surface of the plains near our camp to preclude the necessity for our having recourse to the muddy pool.  The barometer began to rise slowly from seven in the morning, when it had reached its minimum; but the weather continued hazy, with drizzling rain (from the south-west) until four o’clock, when the clouds slowly drew up.  The plains were not yet at all saturated, although become too soft for our carts.  The evening was cloudy, but by ten o’clock the state of the barometer was such as to leave little doubt about the return of fair weather.  We this day found in the woods to the northward a most beautiful species of Trichinium, with spiky feathered pale yellow flowers, sometimes as much as six inches long.*

(Footnote.  Tr. nobile, Lindley manuscripts; foliis caulinis obovatis cuspidatis subundulatis ramisque corymbosis angulatis glabris, spica cylindracea:  rachi lanata, calycis laciniis 3 acutis 2 retusis, bracteis puberulis.  Differs from Tr. densum, Cunningham in the bracts not being villous at the base, and from T. macrocephalum, R. Br. in having much larger flowers, which are yellow not lilac, and in three of the segments of the calyx being acute.)

ASCEND MOUNT ALLAN.

April 3.

Thick fog in the morning.  The day being Sunday the party remained in the camp; but I do not think we could have left it from the soft state of the plains, however desirable it might have been to proceed.  After twelve I rode to Wollar (Mount Allan) with the theodolite, and from its summit I intersected most of the hills seen from Mounts Amyot and Cunningham.  A small wart on the eastern horizon, very distant yet conspicuous, I found to be Mount Juson, the hill on which I had stood with the brother of the botanist whose name had been given to this hill by Mr. Oxley.

The sameness in the surface of this country is apparently owing to the simplicity of its geological composition.  All the hills I ascended below the junction of Byrne’s creek consist of ferruginous sandstone, similar to that which constitutes all the hills I saw on, and even beyond, the Darling.

On passing to and from Mount Allan we crossed, at three-quarters of a mile from the camp, Goobang creek, the bed of which exactly resembles that of the Bogan.  The remains of drifted weeds on the trees and the uniformity of its channel showed that it is a considerable tributary of the Lachlan.  At length the stars appeared in the evening, and I could once more see my unerring guides, the faithful Little Dog, and the mighty Hercules,* whereby our latitude seemed to be 33 degrees 8 minutes 55 seconds South.

(Footnote.  Procyon, in Canis Minor and Regulus in Leo.  The latter being also called Hercules and Cor Leonis.)