Nov. 8, 1858.] GASCOYNE RIVERS, IN WESTERN AUSTRALIA. 51 



sucli additions to our sketch of the outward route as circumstances 

 would admit. 



23rd June. — We all arrived safe at the hospitable residence of Mr. 

 W. Burges, just in time to escape a set in of rain, which lasted, with 

 little intermission, till the 26th. 



27th and 2Sth June were employed in packing up and otherwise 

 disposing of the equipment of the expedition. On the 29th we arrived 

 at the house of Mr. L. Burges, on the Irwin ; the following day being 

 occupied in making up the accounts connected with the expedition, 

 which, including the whole of the cash expenditure, did not exceed 

 40?., which sum had already been subscribed by a few settlers inte- 

 rested in the undertaking. 



Quitting the Irwin on the 1st of July, and proceeding by way of 

 Dandaragan and Toodyay, I arrived with Mr. Eoe and chainer Fair- 

 burn in Perth on the 10th instant, having accomplished a journey of 

 nearly 2000 miles in 107 days. 



On reviewing the foregoing report, I find it necessary to add a few 

 observations on subjects that could not well be introduced into the 

 body of the narrative. 



In the first place, viewing the geographical and geological features 

 in combination, the tract of country contained within the 114th and 

 118th parallels of longitude, and the 24th and 27th degrees of south 

 latitude, may be considered as an inclined plain, the eastern edge of 

 which has an elevation of about 1700 feet above the level of the sea. 

 Commencing from the coast, the first 100 miles is almost exclusively 

 of tertiary sandstone formation, which the process of denudation has, 

 in many instances, converted into either stony or sandy tracts, rarely 

 fertile, except when subject to the influence of frequent inundation. 

 This region seldom gives rise to rivers or watercourses ; the flat- 

 topped ranges which are often found towards the eastern limits of 

 this formation do not generally exceed 500 or 600 feet in altitude, 

 and are only those portions of country that have not as yet yielded 

 to the waste of time or the constant action of rivers, which, rising 

 in the higher lands more to the eastward, rapidly abrade, and in 

 their onward course remove the soft and porous sandstone from their 



In the deeper valleys, towards the eastern edge of these sand- 

 stones, thin beds of oolitic limestone, containing numerous fossil 

 shells, occasionally occur ; also gypsum and clayey shales, with other 

 indications of the probable existence of coal in the vicinity : following 

 the series appears a compact, fine-grained amorphous sandstone, 

 having an almost flinty fracture ; this rock in a few miles gives place 



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