STATEN RIVER TO JARDINE RIVER 313 



bloodwood and stringybark, with occasional ironbarks, zamias, pines 

 and grasstrees ; in fact, the usual features of the DESERT SANDSTONE 

 TABLELANDS. The small creeks had a fringe of banksias with a 

 few " mahogany " trees. The escape of the party from the 

 inundable coast land must have been a source of profound satisfac- 

 tion. There was a heavy storm of rain and thunder at night. 



In consequence of the rain, the country traversed on the 

 following day (q.th January) was boggy. The travellers soon got 

 on a river and its anabranches. CAMP 60 was on one of the 

 anabranches, the total distance covered in the day being 6 miles. 

 Frank Jardine proposed to call this water-course " MICKETEE- 

 BOOMULGEIAI " (" the place where the lightning struck "). Fortu- 

 nately the name has not stuck, to be a terror to future students of 

 the gentle art of orthography. It is, in fact, the river on which, 

 90 miles higher up, is the centre of the GOLDFIELD which its 

 discoverers called the " COEN." It is NOT, however, the DUTCH 

 COEN, but a tributary of the ARCHER RIVER. The name " Coen " 

 has been too long in use to be changed, but the Lands Department 

 has begun to call the river of the goldfield the " SOUTH COEN " 

 to distinguish it from the Coen proper. 



On $th January, the party travelled, in the rain, 14 miles 

 N. by E., crossing at 5 miles a large river 200 yards wide, and 

 dry, in spite of the rains, which was named the ARCHER RIVER, and 

 two of its anabranches. The valley of this river is described by 

 Frank Jardine as " of great richness and beauty, and the BEST 

 COUNTRY FOR CATTLE seen north of Broadsound." " The banks," 

 he continues, " are fringed by a thick belt of vine scrub, containing 

 very many Leichhardt trees and other handsome trees and shrubs 

 of great luxuriance and growth " (Byerley, p. 43). 



Of the ARCHER RIVER, Richardson (p. 38) says : " I believe 

 this river to be the same as that one NAMED at its mouth the COEN 

 BY THE DUTCH." The discoverers of the goldfield to the south-east 

 named it, as well as the river on which it occurred, the COEN, 

 following Richardson's suggestion ; but their river is in reality 

 only a tributary of the Archer and neither river is the Coen of 

 the Dutch. The inlet named " COEN REVIER " by Jan CARSTENS- 

 ZOON on 8th May, 1623, is about 17 miles north of the mouth 

 of the Archer. 



CAMP 6 1 was pitched on a small water-hole in a water-course 

 running SSE. 



6th January was a toilsome day for the horses, but 16 miles 

 were gained to the north, through undulating country with 

 open box forest and some ironbark, bloodwood, acacia, sterculia 

 and pandanus. The ground was " rotten " from the rains, and 

 yet the WATER-COURSES were TOO SANDY TO RETAIN WATER. A 

 " RANGE " was sighted 5 or 6 miles to the east the escarpment 

 of a fragmentary sandstone tableland. The day's march was a 



