52 
Mr. Belt to return and bring the rest of the party to this spot, 
which I selected as a camp, I continued, on a bearing of 304°, for 
one mile, through dense mulga scrub, to the entrance of the gorge 
near Paisley’s Bluff. Leaving my horse here, I proceeded on foot 
up the creek issuing from the gorge on a bearing of 351° for one 
mile to the base of Paisley’s Bluff. Wath the appearance of this 
locality 1 was disappointed, finding it very sterile Disappoint- 
ment also awaited me in meeting with but two small pools of 
stagnant water near the mouth of the gorge. Moreover, a strange 
solitude beset the place. Not the faintest sound was heard to indi- 
cate that any living thing existed here, and the sight of bare and 
massive quartzite and gneiss rocks rising perpendicularly to an 
immense height and displaying numerous fractures and dislocations 
completed in me a feeling of profound depression. Paisley’s. Bluff 
is probably 1,500ft. above the gorge, which is only about 20yds. 
wide, and is densely timbered with large pines, gums, and cycads 
(Encephalartos Macdonnelli). When I entered the gorge the sun 
had already set. I did not, therefore, venture far into the gloomy 
valley, which I have named Spencer’s Gorge. after Professor W. 
Baldwin Spencer, of the Melbourne University, the biologist of the 
expedition. Having satisfied myself of the absurdity of attempting 
to take the camels this way, I returned to the waterhole, at which 
I found the rest of the party camped. Our stage to-day has been 
twenty miles over very rough country. 
Thursday, July 12th.—Camp No. 47; bar. 27-74in., ther. 32°; 
height 2,185ft. Professors Tate and Spencer desired to make an 
examination of this locality and the gorge visited yesterday. In 
order to gratify this wish the camp remained at the waterhole. I 
proceeded northward for the purpose of ascertaining whether a 
practicable road existed through the Macdonnell Ranges in this 
direction. Course 29° for half a mile to a gap in another high 
ridge which runs in a parallel line with Paisley’s Bluff Range ; 
thence 87° 30’ for one and three-quarter miles between high 
ranges, and 22° 30’ for half a mile to a gorge an the main range 
west of Brinkley’s Bluff. The latter bluff is an immense mass 
of granitic rocks of great altitude, abrupt, and apparently inacces- 
sible from the west. A large waterhole occupies the whole space 
between the perpendicular walis of the gorge, which is only about 
25yds. in width. To-day the water near the eastern wall of rocks 
was fortunately of no great depth and I succeeded in getting 
through the gorge. Continued on a bearing of 14° 40’ for three- 
quarters of a mile to a granitic hill; thence 8° 40’ for three and a 
half miles to a small waterhoie in a rocky gap of a low granite 
ridge. The creek is now densely overgrown with teatree, and con- 
