o2 
Mennamurta, who had elected to accompany the expedition. My 
object was to induce the aboriginals to visit our camp for the 
benefit of the anthropologist. But only one blackfellow and his 
family came in. Him I dispatched with the others to collect 
specimens of natural history. In the evening three lizards, a 
number of frogs, and some birds’ eggs, together with a number of 
fossils ( Orthoceras and Lituites) were brought to me. Professor 
Tate to-day examined the district for fossils and botanical speci- 
mens. <A large number of rock pigeons were shot near the camp, 
sufficient for several meals for the whole party. I followed the 
creek southward for several miles to its junction with another 
gum creek trom the westward and mapped the surrounding country. 
A prominent hill bearing 192°, distant nine and a hali villas, { have 
named Mount Tucker, after C. Tucker, Esq., Mayor of Adelaide. 
In the evening I attended to the maps and computed results from 
various astronomical observations. By careful hypsometer measure- 
ments I found that this camp occupied the most elevated position 
we had yet attained, namely, a height of 2,263ft. above sea level. 
Obnoxious burrs, notably salsola-kali, infest the whole of the 
country in this neighborhood, as well as the other territory through 
which we have passed, supplying our chief source of inconvenience 
throughout the whole journey. 
Friday, June i15th.—Camp No. 31; bar. 27-1 2in., ther. 28°. An 
earlier start than usual was made this morning, with the view of 
affording Professor Tate an opportunity to examine a fossiliferous 
deposit some two miles to the north, I sent Harry and another 
black boy to show him, and Dr. Stirling, who accompanied him, to 
the locality in question, giving Harry directions how to join the 
main party. Following Laurie's Creek, on a bearing of 24°, 
we passed in one mile through a rough gap in a low sandstone 
and quartzite ridge, and entered Mr. EK. Giles’s Vale of Tempe. 
This is merely a small well-grassed cotton and salt bush plain, five 
square miles in extent, intersected by Laurie’s Creek and sur- 
rounded by low scrubby ridges. Altered our course to 318° 50’ 
along the main channel of Laurie’s Creek, finding at the end of 
one mile that the creek receives numerous small tributaries from 
the surrounding stony undulations, which are exceptionally densely 
timbered with mulga (Acacia aneura). At one and a half miles 
we again entered sandridges, which now have a direction of N.73° E. 
A change of bearing to 336° 15’ towards a low depression in the 
James Range, revealed to us that the sandridges, which are over- 
erown with porcupine grass and timbered with casuarina, alternate 
with mulga flats for five miles and then give place to salt and cotton 
bush plains. With six miles covered we arrived at a low sandstone 
