leaving the old Depot, that as soon as we got a few miles distant from the hills, I should be unable to continue my angles, and should thenceforth have to rely on bearings.  So long as we were chaining there was no great fear of miscalculating position; so far then as the second Depot, it would not be difficult for any other traveller to follow my course.  From that point, as I have already stated, I ran on a compass bearing of 25 degrees to the west of north, or on a N.N.W. course, and adhered to it up to the point I have now led the reader, a new bearing having been taken on some object still farther in advance from every sand hill we ascended.  This appeared to me to be the most satisfactory way of computing our distances and position, for the latitude necessarily correcting both, the amount of error could not be very great.  I now found, on this principle, that I was in latitude 27 degrees 4 minutes 40 seconds south, and in longitude, by account, 139 degrees 10 minutes east.

On reaching the cart I learnt that Lewis, while wandering about, had stumbled on a fine sheet of water, in a valley about two miles to the south of us, and that Joseph and Flood had shot a couple of ducks, or I should have said widgeon of the common kind.

On the 26th I directed Flood to keep close under the sandy ridge, to the termination of which Mr. Browne and I had been, and to move into the plain on the original bearing of 25 degrees to the west of north until I should overtake him; Mr. Browne and I then mounted and went to see the water Lewis had discovered, for which we had not had time the previous evening.  It was a pretty little sequestered spot surrounded by sand hills, excepting to the N.W. forming a long serpentine canal, apparently deep, and shaded by many gum-trees; there were a numbers of ducks on the water, but too wild to allow us within shot.  Both Mr. Browne and I were pleased with the spot, and could not but congratulate ourselves in having such a place to fall back upon, if we should be forced to retreat, as it had all the promise of durability for some weeks to come.  We overtook the drays far upon the plains, and continued our journey for twenty miles, when I halted on a bare piece of sandy ground on which there were a few tussocks of grass, and a small puddle of water.  On travelling over the plain we found it undulating, with shining hollows in which it was evident water sometimes collects.  The stones, with which the ground was so thickly covered as to exclude vegetation, were of different lengths, from one inch to six, they had been rounded by attrition, were coated with oxide of iron, and evenly distributed.  In going over this dreary waste the horses left no track, and that of the cart was only visible here and there.  From the spot on which we stopped no object of any kind broke the line of the horizon; we were as lonely as a ship at sea, and as a navigator seeking for land, only that we had the disadvantage of an unsteady compass, without any fixed point on which to steer.  The fragments covering this singular feature were all of the same kind of rock, indurated or compact quartz, and appeared to me to have had originally the form of parallelograms, resembling both in their size and shape the shivered fragments, lying at the base of the northern ranges, to which I have already had occasion to call attention.