To the westward, as a medium point. the horizon was unbroken, and the eye wandered over an apparently endless succession of wood and plain.  A brighter green than usual marked the course of the mountain torrents in several places, but there was no glittering light among the trees, no smoke to betray a water hole, or to tell that a single inhabitant was traversing the extensive region we were overlooking.  We were obliged to return to the plain on which we had breakfasted, and to sleep upon it.

D’URBAN’S group.

D’Urban’s Group is of compact sandstone formation.  Its extreme length is from E.S.E. to W.N.W., and cannot be more than from seven to nine miles, whilst its breadth is from two to four.  The central space forms a large basin, in which there are stunted pines and eucalyptus scrub, amid huge fragments of rocks.  It rises like an island from the midst of the ocean, and as I looked upon it from the plains below, I could without any great stretch of the imagination, picture to myself that it really was such.  Bold and precipitous, it only wanted the sea to lave its base; and I cannot but think that such must at no very remote period have been the case, and that the immense flat we had been traversing, is of comparatively recent formation.

We reached the camp on the 28th of the month, by nearly the same route; and were happy to find that, after the few days’ rest they had enjoyed, there was a considerable improvement in the animals.

Our experience of the nature of the country to the southward, and the westward, was such as to deter us from risking anything, by taking such a direction as was most agreeable to our views.  Nothing remained to us but to follow the creek, or to retreat; and as we could only be induced to adopt the last measure when every other expedient should have failed, we determined on pursuing our original plan, of tracing New Year’s Creek as far as practicable.

Description of Oxley’s table land.

Oxley’s Table Land is situated in lat. 29 degrees 57 minutes 30 seconds, and in E. long. 145 degrees 43 minutes 30 seconds, the mean variation being 6.32 easterly.  It consists of two hills that appear to have been rent asunder by some convulsion of nature, since the passage between them is narrow and their inner faces are equally perpendicular.  The hill which I have named after the late Surveyor-general, is steep on all sides; but the other gradually declines from the south, and at length loses itself in a large plain that extends to the north.  It is from four to five miles in length, and is picturesque in appearance, and lightly wooded.  A few cypresses were growing on Oxley’s Table Land; but it had, otherwise, very little timber upon its summit.  Both hills are of sandstone formation, and there are some hollows upon the last that deserve particular notice.  They have the appearance of having been formed by eddies of water, being deeper in the centre than at