Page:Tracks of McKinlay and party across Australia.djvu/63

 features to the more southerly districts, a resemblance extending even to the irregular and rather scanty rain-fall. There is the dry atmosphere that results from this imperfect rain supply. There are heavy dews, with chill and even frosty nights, McKinlay, for instance, in descending the Burdekin, found ice on three different mornings, while the other nights or mornings were also mostly very cold. This was in July, mid-winter, no doubt, but in a latitude between 19° and 20°. Arnhem's Land, forming the west shore of the Carpentaria Gulf, and the Cape York peninsula, forming the opposite shore, have alone decidedly tropical features; and even in these comparatively restricted areas, it is not improbable that we may discern something of the "Australian feature" still imparting its peculiar expression to the tropical countenance.

KINLAY—1861-2. McKinlay left Adelaide on the 16th August, 1861. Proceeding in a direction due north, it was not until the 24th September that he had passed the furthest settlements of the colony, then extending in that direction to upwards of 400 miles from Adelaide. Some interest attaches to these remoter parts of the colony, as exhibiting extremes of flood and arid sterility. Twenty years before, Eyre had seen and described a kind of inland sea, shallow