28G COUl^TRY EASTWARD OF THK DARLING. [CH.VII. 



passed over four miles of firm, open ground, with some small 

 rough gum-trees upon it. We then crossed a track on 

 which I saw the angophora, for the first time, since we tra- 

 versed Dunlop's range ; and near it we passed a hollow 

 about half a mile wide, and a mile and a half long ; in 

 which, although the surface was of clay, there was no appear- 

 ance of water ever having lodged, a circumstance for which 

 we could only account, by supposing, that much rain seldom 

 falls, at any season, in this part of the interior. We next 

 entered a scrub of dwarf casuarinse, and myoporummontanum, 

 (R. Br.), the latter bush prevailing so as to form a thick 

 scrub at the foot of the hills, and even upon them. The 

 range, like all those which I had examined near the Darling, 

 was of exactly the same kind of rock as D'Urban's group, 

 Dunlop's range, &c. &c. viz. quartz rock breaking naturally 

 into irregular polyedrons, but at the base I noticed ferru- 

 ginous sandstone. The summit aftbrded a very extensive 

 view of the country to the eastward, which rose towards a 

 range extending south-east and north-west, its two extre- 

 mities bearing 103° and 122° from north. At the foot of 

 which, a blue mist might be supposed to promise a river or 

 chain of ponds in an ordinary season ; and a rather high and 

 isolated range of yellow rock, in the direction of Oxley's 

 Mount Granard, seemed to overlook some extensive piece of 

 water or spacious plain to the south of it. An intervening 

 valley appeared also to form a basin falling southwards, but 

 immediately beyond the group, I was upon, a vast extent of 

 country, not low, but without any prominent features, although 

 chequered with plain and bush, stretched far to the eastward. 

 There were no large trees visible on any side, but a thick 

 scrub of bushes covered much of the country. Upon the 

 whole, I considered, that in a wet season, we might have 

 travelled straight home, as there were many dry water holes 

 in the surface, wiiere it consisted of clay, but that, unless 

 rain I'cll, it would be vviscir, considering the exhausted state 

 i)[ our cattle, to U(;(q» to the beaten track, loi- the animals 



