40 
Report of the Expedition 
derable, we found water only in tlie pools of two, after having 
followed them down for a considerable distance. The country is 
very remarkable, particularly after leaving the Wickham. Steep 
sandstone ranges parallel to each other, with a direction from 
south-west to north-east, intersected our course. They were 
separated by tea-tree flats; but at their foot generally a richer 
vegetation of pandanus, of the leguminous iron-bark, and of 
blood-wood, existed, which made me mistake them for the ver¬ 
dant belt of trees accompanying rivers and big creeks. From 
the top of these ranges still more ranges appeared, one above the 
Other, till their dim outlines were lost in the misty blue of the 
horizon. My horses and cattle got very foot sore, and I was 
compelled to go to the northward, in order to get out of these 
ranges. 
After having passed over tea-tree flats, I entered again into 
scrubby stringy-bark forest, with patches of cypress pine thickets. 
The creek with water was in latitude 15 deg. 10 min. Towards 
the Roper sandstone ranges re-appeared. Fine box-tree flats 
with dry water-courses stretch from south by west to north by 
east, but they are limited towards the river by a narrow belt of 
thick scrub. Plains with groves or thickets of the raspberry-jam 
tree, and overgrown with salicornia, indicate the neighbourhood 
of salt water. A fine open country, undulating or hilly, extends 
along the Roper; and fine lagoons, some two or three miles long, 
covered with ducks and wild geese, are parallel to the river, 
quarter to two miles oflT. 
I followed the Roper from latitude 14 deg. 50 min. to 14 deg. 
40 min., longitude 134deg. 18 min.; but I came again on its 
upper course, and I believe that the creeks which I passed from 
latitude 14 deg. 40 min. to 13 deg. 44 min. (longitude 133 deg. 
45 min. appr.) belonged to the system of that river; and I equally 
believe that the corresponding waters to the north-west belong to 
the system of the South Alligator, on the main branch (?) 0 f 
which river I came much later in descending from the table land 
into the valleys to the westward. I observed the tide to latitude 
14 deg. 44 min., where the bed of the river assumes the character 
of the Lynd and many rivers, mentioned before. As far as 
