NISBET AND LOCKHART RIVERS 549 



The prospectors tried the gullies draining the hill which Crosbie 

 and I visited yesterday, but got no gold ; they then tried some 

 gullies, tributaries of HAYS CREEK, beside the quartziferous ridges 

 crossed in travelling from Camp 24. They got some fine colours, 

 and one " shotty " grain of GOLD. 



January 15. Heavy rain almost all day. Messrs. Hume and 

 Hamil tried the gullies below the green quartziferous ridges I 

 crossed yesterday, but got only one fine " colour " of GOLD. In the 

 afternoon Crosbie and I went across to a creek about 3 miles west of 

 the camp, one of the tributaries of the Lockhart River, coming 

 from the Mcllwraith Range ; we found it much larger than we 

 expected, as it had twice as much water as Hays Creek. We 

 determined to move camp in this direction as soon as the weather 

 permitted. [This may be what has since been named CHERRY 

 CREEK. R. L. J.] 



January 16. It rained most of the night, and almost all day. 

 Moving camp was out of the question. 



January 17. It rained most of the night and to-day, till it was 

 too late to move camp. The flats which we had to cross were very 

 boggy. It cleared a little at one time, and we saw the sun for the 

 first time since the nth. After dinner I accompanied Messrs. 

 Crosbie and Layland to the creek we had visited the day before 

 yesterday. [Cherry Creek (?). R. L. J.] We tried some crevices 

 among bars on the left bank near where the creek escapes from the 

 hills, but got no gold. The bars are of highly micaceous gneiss, 

 with some beds of micaceous greywacke, and some of Lydian 

 stone. The beds are vertical, and strike north and south. The 

 creek falls to the north-north-east. During our stay at Hays Creek 

 immense flocks of TORRES STRAIT PIGEONS left the islands, and 

 flew inland at daybreak ; they flew pretty high, but we managed 

 to shoot enough for the pot. 



The night kept fair, and I even saw a star. 

 January 18. Left Camp 25. After crossing some boggy 

 flats, with teatree and grasstree, we struck the creek visited yester- 

 day [CHERRY CREEK (?). R. L. J.] in 3 miles, at a point which 

 bore W. 27 south from the mountain on the north side of the 

 " opening in the hills." Thereafter we kept a general course of 

 NNW. In a mile, over grassy ridges, with scrubby gullies, we 

 crossed obliquely a wide valley with two large third-magnitude 

 creeks. In the last of these GREYHOUND CREEK a horse of 

 that name fell and wet a fifty-pound bag of flour ; all that was 

 wet was baked the same night, so that there was no loss. Near 

 Greyhound Creek a GIN AND CHILD were seen. We crossed next 

 some high ridges of granite, affording a fine view of the MACROSSAN 

 RANGE, but as it was getting late in the day we dropped down into 

 the valley again, and camped on the left bank of a gully. A camp 

 fire was seen about half a mile back from our camp. We travelled 



