Page:Tracks of McKinlay and party across Australia.djvu/38

 this vast area is chiefly a coarse grass of a pungent flavour, having very sharp prickly-pointed leaves, and therefore called by the settlers the porcupine grass. There are several species of this grass, It is the spinifex of Stuart's journal, the Triodia pungens of Gregory. The cattle will eat its tall thin seed stalks. It grows usually in the scrubs, and is always the indicator of a poor soil. Good grass is to be found only in the hollows of creeks, and rarely beyond these limited spaces do we find the few gum trees of this country. These trees, reared in precarious climes, are seldom large, or straight or well grown in the stem. The country is characterized by some hill ranges, the chief of which, however, are not more than from 3,500 to 2,000 feet above the plains. The culminating height is Mount Hay, in south latitude 24°, but the country had the appearance of gradually rising towards this point for several hundred miles southwards. Chambers' Pillar, in this part of the country, is a remarkable natural object, resembling a monument, with perpendicular sides, 105 feet in height, and surmounting a small hill, the whole elevation being about 250 feet. There were others near it similar but of less striking appearance, and on examination they proved to be eminences composed of soft argillaceous rock, capped by a thin silicious stratum. The sides were shelving away causing the flinty top gradually to break off, and