FROM THE PASCOE RIVER TO TEMPLE BAY 565 



to make a start, but five of the horses were missing, and were not 

 found till the afternoon. They had left our camp, where the 

 only grass was, and strayed into wretched brushwood country. 

 One of the prospectors' horses had got staked in the knee, and had 

 to be operated on. There was one shower in the afternoon ; the 

 night was fine. 



February 13. Left Camp 37, and in I mile to the north- 

 north-east (" cement " and HEATH) reached the edge of a high 

 SANDSTONE TABLELAND. For the next 5 miles to the north we 

 kept on the edge of the tableland, looking down into the valley 

 of the PASCOE, with the JANET RANGE beyond. The sandstone 

 tableland (to which I gave the name of the SIR WILLIAM THOMSON 

 RANGE) had a red soil, and was timbered with stringybark, blood- 

 wood, Xanthorrhoea and pandanus. This tableland extends from 

 the valley of the Pascoe in longitude 143 3' E. and latitude 12 40' 

 S., north-north-eastward to the I2th parallel, and presents a steep 

 escarpment to the Pacific and a long gradual slope towards the 

 Gulf. [It would be more accurately described as a " shelf " than 

 as a " range." R. L. J.] 



At the end of the 5 miles we descended about 500 feet from the 

 tableland (half a mile east) to a lower shelf of sandstone. The 

 strata on the tableland are reddish and cemented with iron. The 

 beds on the lower shelf are yellow and white all gritty and 

 some containing a few pebbles. 



In a mile east-north-east we reached a fourth-magnitude creek 

 in a deep valley. We ran it up for half a mile west-north-west, 

 and crossed. In half a mile more to the north, across a heathy 

 ridge, we crossed another branch of the same creek. 



In a mile and a half to the north, across the chord of a bay in 

 the SIR WILLIAM THOMSON RANGE, we camped on a gully near a 

 promontory of the range. The vegetation was similar to that on 

 the top of the tableland, with the addition of a few ironbarks and 

 myallwood trees. (CAMP 38.) There was a thunderstorm at 

 night and no observation was possible. 



February 14. A sultry, oppressive day. We travelled 2 miles 

 to the north, over open sandstone country timbered with stringy- 

 bark, bloodwood, grasstree, and pandanus, sloping to the east 

 the cliffs of the Sir William Thomson Range visible about a mile 

 to the west. 



Our course next lay 10 E. down the right wall of the deep 

 valley of a fourth-magnitude creek. There was flat sandstone 

 country on both sides of the creek, occasionally open, but for the 

 most part covered with HEATH. On the creek turning nearly due 

 east, we crossed to the left bank. It was running briskly. 



Half a mile more on the same course, across burnt HEATH, we 

 crossed another fourth-magnitude creek. The two creeks join 

 about a mile down and fall into the Pascoe. 



