Page:Journals of Several Expeditions Made in Western Australia.djvu/164

 tance of three-quarters of a mile, I crossed a tolerable sized stream running to my left, consequently to join French River; it seemed well adapted for driving mills.

After proceeding N.E. six miles and three quarters, the course was changed to N.½ W. for a mile, then to N.W. by W. for half a mile farther, down a hollow, to obtain water and stop for the night. This hollow appeared to descend to the bed of French River, the outline of which could be traced at a short distance to the N.W. From an adjoining elevation, the eastern of two conspicuous hummocks of Porrangur-up, bore N.W ½ W., and the eastern, apparently highest shoulder of the same mountain, N. W. ½ N. The surface walked over is slightly uneven; the elevated portions, which constitute five-sixths, are either sandy or stony, producing a tolerably close covering of low shrubs, and a rather thick wooding of mahogany and casuarina (sheoak?) trees, the former of small size, and both much decayed and fallen; the depressed portions are a mixture of black sod and sand, in various proportions; swampy in the rainy season, producing no trees, a shrubby melalencat, a rushy vegatation, which will pasture cattle, but which is void of the soft succulency of good grass. The rock which protrudes, and, by its fragments, forms a general covering, in many places is of a clayey nature, of considerable hardness, produced by exposure, and increased, perhaps, by the fires, with which the natives seem to have repeatedly consumed the vegetable productions. It seemed to penetrate the ground to a very small depth, and it never forms large blocks.

On the morning of the 28th, I followed a north course for a mile, then a N.N.E. one for one-fifth