541 
a gentle dip to the coast of the Gulf of Carpentaria. Its eastern escarpment, in all 
probability, from “ Strathleven No. IV.” Block, keeps nearly the meridian of 143° E. 
as far north as the divide between the Lukin and the Kendall. 
Between the South Coen and the Peach Eiver, our course took us over a con- 
siderable area of the Desert Sandstone, presenting a steep escarpment to the east, which 
I named the Geikie Eange. The sandstone lies on granite. The Oeikie Range is cut 
through by the Peach. Our course, however, lay among the mountains (at a much higher 
elevation) to the east, so that we only saw this portion of the Geikie Range or tableland. 
I may say, in passing, that on this portion of our journey we had a good deal of skirmishing 
with the natives, who managed to kill the horse I was riding by a spear-thrust just behind 
the saddle, and to wound the horse which carried another member of the party, so that 
the acquisition of geological information was not altogether unattended with difficulty. 
Between Canoe Creek and the Pascoe, outliers of the Desert Sandstone rest on 
the tops of granite hills, while on the western or left bank of the Pascoe the 
escarpment which prolongs the Geiliie Range to the north continues in an unbroken 
line. Granite mountains (the Janet Range) rise to the east of Canoe Creek to a height 
of 1,245 feet. Ear to the west (the eastern escarpment of the tableland forming the 
watershed between the Batavia — Gulf waters — and the Pacific ivaters at the heads of 
the Pascoe), a second escarpment marks the eastern limit of a higher bed of the Desert 
Sandstone. This, which I named the AVilkinson Range, is now included in “ Merkunga” 
and “ Merkunga South ” Squatting Blocks. The greater part of the Desert Sandstone 
country betw'een Latitudes 12° and 16° S. is now taken up on pastoral leases (except 
within the nominally “ settled district ” extending thirty miles from the coast on both 
sides of the peninsula, and in which the terms are less easy), so that the term Desert 
cannot apply to it. 
Near the mouth of Canoe Creek wc found the Desert Sandstone occupying both 
sides of the crook. 'Where this creek joins the Pascoe we built a canoe, or dug-out, by 
which we crossed the flooded river. This must be about fifteen miles above the spot 
where in 1848 the gentle and unfortunate Explorer Kennedy left the remainder of his 
party when he set out on foot, accompanied only by his blackboy “ Jacky-Jacky, to 
meet his fate at the “ Escape Inlet,” within sight of the ship which was to bring him 
relief. The hills at Pair Cape were doubtless the last objects that met the eyes of his 
companions as one by one they sickened and died, while waiting for the relief which 
was to come too late for all but two of the number.* 
North of the Pascoe we ascended to the top of a high escarpment of Desert 
Sandstone (to which I gave the name of the Sir AVdliam Thompson Range)^. This 
tableland extends from the valley of the Pascoe in Long. 143° 3' E., and Lat. 12 40 S., 
north-north-eastward to the 12th parallel, and presents a steep escarpment to the 
Pacific, and a long gradual slope towards the Gulf. The bed of sandstone of which the 
tableland is composed is about five hundred feet in thickness, and is reddish and cemented 
with iron oxide. A lower shelf which crops out from beneath it is of yellow and white 
sandstone, occasionally containing a few pebbles. The tableland and the lower shelf 
decompose into soils which have a world-wide difference, the former being clotted with 
good grass, and well timbered with stringy-bark, bloodwood, Pandanits, and Xantliorrlicea, 
while the latter was mainly covered with thickets of heath, and, as far as grass was con- 
cerned, was a veritable desert. The lower beds of the shelf abut to the east against 
serrated mountains rising to 2,342 feet, which I named the Carron Range^ in commemora- 
tion of the tragic circumstances connected with Dr. Carron’s stay when Kennedy left him 
* Narrative of the Voyage of H.M.S. “ Kattlesnake.” By John McGUlivray, B.K.G.S. Vol. u. 
London, 1852. 
