35 
from Moreton Bay to Port Essington. 
country opened, and fine box flats and open forest land refreshed 
the eye, tired by the endless scrub. It is very probable that 
farther from the sea coast, and higher up the rivers, before they 
enter into the mountains, a fine favourable country exists. The 
country is in general well watered, numerous creeks provided with 
good water-holes, and several rivers, with running streams at 
the head of the salt water, go in a north-easterly direction, which 
changes into an east-north-east and easterly one, to the sea. 
Between the Nicholson and the Marlow (latitude 17 deg.) 
named after Captain Marlow, of the Royal Engineers, for his kind 
contribution to our expedition, we met numerous creeks, which 
contained either fresh or slightly-brackisli water. The first (lati¬ 
tude 17 deg. 39 min.) I called “ Moonlight Creek,” as I had found 
it on a reconnoitre during a moonlight night; another about 
sixteen miles, north 30 deg. west, I called “ Smith’s Creek 
a third I met in latitude 17 deg. 25 min.; a fourth about eleven 
miles north-north-west. The whole country was covered with an 
almost uninterrupted tea-tree scrub. 
Between the Marlow (longitude 138 deg. 25 min. appigree) and 
the Van Alphen (latitude 16 deg. 30 min., longitude 137 deg. 
18 min.,) I passed six creeks, containing a greater or smaller 
supply of fresh or brackish water. Some of the very isolated 
waterholes were very small, and often very brackish. Seven 
creeks, ten to twenty yards broad, were salt, the water filling their 
whole bed. They were easily fordable, as the bed was composed 
of a firm sand, or of rock. The three most southern ones pro¬ 
bably join into a large river, the mangrove line of which I saw in 
the distance. I called the most southern one “ Turner’s Creek,” 
in acknowledgment of the liberal support I received from Cooper 
Turner, Esq. In latitude 16 deg. 52 min., about eighteen miles 
south-east of the Van Alphen, the country opens, and fine plains 
extend along a big creek, though badly supplied with water. In 
the bed of this creek I found a piece of granite, and near another, 
about eight miles west-north-west of this, a large piece of por¬ 
phyry, in an old black-fellow’s camp. This piece had served to 
crush the seed-vessels of the pandanus, which grows abundantly 
all along these creeks. These pebbles show that the table land, 
n 2 
