45 



issuing from a place it had never been known to issue from 

 before, and is still continuing to do so. 



On leaving Strangways Springs we crossed the Warrenei 

 Creek, and for miles afterwards there is nothing seen but a 

 country bestudded with sandhills and claypans alternately — 

 the latter being the bared portions of the secondary strata, the 

 former the reconstruction of the desert sandstone, the pre- 

 vailing winds having so arranged the sandy materials resting 

 on the impervious clays of the secondary era into the features 

 of sandhill and claypan, which may be said to culminate at 

 the Yellow Waterhole Lake. This lake or waterhole is ex- 

 ceedingly uniform in depth throughout, and cannot contain a 

 less area than sixty acres. Its entire surface is covered 

 with a species of water-grass, which stands from four to five 

 feet in height. This grass was nearly ripe at the time we 

 were there, and the horses seemed exceedingly fond of it. 

 Although fresh, the waters of the lake were thick with clayey 

 and other matter in suspension. The sand-dunes, which must 

 on an average stand about twenty feet high (contrary to 

 natural order), seem to encircle this lake. For a considerable 

 distance from the lake we travelled over a very similar country 

 to that we had passed over the day before. At length we 

 emerged upon an open plain, and the fossiliferous nodules, 

 which we had not seen for some time, began to occur again. 



Pursuing our course along the plain we arrived at the Emily 

 Spring. A salt swamp intervenes between this spring and the 

 William Spring, the two being situated about a mile apart — the 

 former on the southern side of the incrusted claypan, and the 

 latter on the northern. Neither of these springs have mounds 

 rising more than three feet above the level of the surrounding 

 plain, and from appearances are not likely ever to attain a much 

 greater height. The water from the Emily Spring, though not 

 abundant, is very fair in quality. 



Next morning I visited the borehole on Anna Creek, the 

 road being over sandhill country a considerable part of the 

 distance. The country about the borehole, and for a consider- 

 able distance towards the Emily and William Springs, is 

 evidently covered with the waste of the desert sandstone, as 

 the well-sinkings immediately north of this place fully prove. 

 Mr. John Hogarth, of the station, informs me that the kitchen 

 well was the first he sank in this group, and that the first 

 eighteen feet was through sand and clay, at which depth salt 

 water was obtained. At a depth of thirty feet from the sur- 

 face the blue clays of the secondary period were struck. At a 

 total depth of seventy feet from the surface a plentiful supply 

 of very fair household water was obtained, which rises in the 

 shaft to within fifteen feet of the surface. During the shearing 



