11TH AUGUST.--Crossing this river at a favourable spot near our camp, we travelled on, eleven miles, and encamped early, on a fine reach of the main river. Here I had leisure to lay down my late ride on paper, and to connect it with the map; whereupon I concluded, with much regret, that this river must be either a tributary to, or identical with, that which M. Leichardt saw joining the Suttor in latitude 21° 6' S., and which he supposed to come from the west. It had supplied me with water across three degrees of latitude, and had gradually altered its course from N.W. to about 30° E. of N. In my ride I had traced it to 21° 30' of latitude south, and no high land had appeared, as I expected, to the northward, at all likely to turn its course towards the west. I found the height of its bed, moreover, to be so little above the sea (not much more than 600 feet), that I could no longer doubt that the division between eastern and western waters was still to the westward; and I arrived at the following conclusions:--
1st. That the river of Carpentaria should have been sought for to the westward of all the sources of the river Salvator.
2nd. That the deepest indentation as yet discovered of the division of the waters, was at the sources of that river, and corresponded with the greatest elevation indicated by the barometer (about 2500 feet); and, 3dly. That there, I. E. under the parallel of 25° S., the highest spinal range must extend westward, in a line of truncated cones, whereof Mount Faraday appeared to be one.
I accordingly determined to retrace our wheel-tracks back to the head of the Salvator, and to explore from thence the country to the north-west, as far as our stock of provisions and the season would permit. I had marked my camps by Roman letters cut deep in sound trees, and at this, I left the number LXIX. cut under the initials of the colony, N.S.W.; this being the number marked from the Culgoa. We had, at least, laid out a good carriage road from the colony to a river in M. Leichardt's route; which road, as far as we had marked it with our wheels, led through pastoral regions of much greater extent than all the colonists now occupied. At this farthest point traced by our wheels within the Tropics, the plants were still known to botanists, but with some interesting exceptions. We here found the CASSIA HETEROLOBA in flower; also the burr plant, CALOTIS CUNEIFOLIA of Brown; the PITTOSPORUM LANCEOLATUM of A. Cunningham, a shrub with yellow flowers and narrow willowy leaves; and the beautiful laurel-leaved GEIGERA LATIFOLIA was still conspicuous among the forest trees. But here also we found a very fine new species of STENOCHILUS[*], a new pine-leaved DODONOEA, allied to the D. PINIFOLIA of Swan River[**], and a most singular hard-leaved shrub, with spiny foliage resembling five pointed stars, proved to be a new species of LABICHEA.[***] Thermometer, at sunrise, 36°; at noon, 71°; at 4 P.M., 70°; at 9, 35°;--with wet bulb, 30°.