TO PORT ESSINGTON. 361 
of the extraordinary drought experienced on the North Coast 
and which have induced him to suppose that part of the 
country had been remarkably dry for a succession of years. 
1. The condition of large channels of rivers and creeks, 
which were either entirely dry or contained -only tiny 
streams not at all proportionate to their widths. 
?. The occurrence of dead crabs and fresh-water turtle on 
the box flats at the east side of the Gulf of Carpentaria. 
The turtle requires a great supply of water, and -those 
skeletons which were observed did not appear to have been 
carried thither by the natives. 
3. Extensive shallows on the west coast of the Gulf, 
surrounded by heaps of dead fresh-water muscle-shells, of 
large size, which were overgrown by small tea-trees, about 
four or five years old. The muscles must have lived and 
grown for a number of years in those hollows, which were 
now entirely dry. 
4. The plains of the East Alligator Range were covered 
by dead fresh-water shells, particularly of the genus Limnea 
which must have lived and grown in shallow holes and 
lagoons, which then existed all over those plains. 
5. Lines of drooping tea-trees along several salt-water 
creeks at the west coast of the Gulf, were dead, in conse- 
quence of the want of the usual freshes, as the tree seems - 
not to live on water entirely salé 55: 2e 
_ It seems impossible, in the present state of our informa- 
tion, to account for this remarkable phenomenon of the 
ing supply of water on the surface of this continent. 
The supposition of a gradual rise of the land would explain - 
Vhy arms of the sea recede, and parts of the bottom of the © 
sea become dry; but it would not explain the decrease of 2d 
moisture in the atmosphere, or the greater evaporation or 
absorption of the waters in lagoons, which are not connecte 
With any watercourse. The rise of the country would rather 
. 4S to expect a greater precipitation of moisture roun: 
