FIRST EXPEDITION 511 



Five miles further (after having passed two gullies with water- 

 holes, falling to the south), we came to a third- magnitude creek 

 running to the west. [VIOLETVILLE Post Office is about 3 miles 

 down this creek. R. L. J.] 



In 3i miles more we crossed a large river (the KING RIVER of 

 Mulligan) falling to the south-west. It has a dry sandy bed, 

 divided into four or five channels, with only a few shallow water- 

 holes. There are several anabranches or bywashes on both sides. 1 



On the south side of the King River we found the country 

 much broken up into ridges, with gullies. Two and a half miles 

 from the King we crossed a second-magnitude creek, running 

 parallel with the river, with a dry, sandy bed. 



In 2 miles more we arrived, just before sunset, at a small 

 water-hole in a gully running west, and camped. Unhappily the 

 grass had just been burned, but we drove the horses back for about 

 half a mile to some rather scanty burnt feed. (CAMP 44 : white 

 gum, broad arrow, J. 20/9/79.) [Near this camp Mulligan's track 

 (1875) must have crossed Hann's (1872). R. L. J.] 



The whole of this day's travelling was very uninteresting, with 

 the exception of the low range between the Lukin and the King, 

 as it presented only a succession of low ridges and unnameable 

 and unmapable gullies. The soil, if it could be called soil, was of 

 decomposed granitic cement, into which the horses sank 2 or 3 inches 

 at every step. The grass was poor ; the timber was mostly stringy- 

 bark and ironbark, with a few bloodwoods ; teatrees in the wet 

 bottoms. 



September 21. We travelled 17^ miles south over country 

 very much like that of yesterday, but on the whole rather more 

 rolling and with fewer ridges. We camped on a little gully trickling 

 to the east, with a patch of burnt feed on its left bank. Except 

 this, we did not see a single chartable water-course the whole day. 

 Five miles back from the camp, we saw some cattle tracks, and 

 2 miles from the camp the tracks of two horses going north. 

 (CAMP 45 : stringybark, broad arrow, J. 21/9/79. Latitude 

 14 48' 45 " S.) [We must have been on the divide between the 

 head of the Coleman River and its tributary, Dismal Creek. 

 Hann came northward up the Coleman valley in 1872 from his 

 Camp 26 to Camp 27. R. L. J.] 



September 22. We steered SE. from Camp 45, at first over 

 rolling granite country. In I mile we passed a patch of mica-schist, 

 striking NE. and dipping SE. at a high angle. There were seen 

 here some PROMISING REEFS, striking north and south, with a good 

 deal of brownstone (decomposed pyrites) in cavities. Two miles 

 from the camp we crossed a dyke, two or three hundred yards wide, 

 of dolerite, running north and south through the schist and forming 

 a low hill. The improvement of the grass on the dolerite soil was 



1 The King River is a tributary of the COLEMAN. R. L. J. 



