The first pioneer to stock country on the Flinders was James Gibson, who took up a run called the Prairie, in 1861. He also stocked several runs in the neighbourhood and on the Clarke River. He started two lots of cattle from the Barwon (N.S.W.), one in charge of Mr. E. R. Edkins, now of Mount Cornish, the other mob in charge of Mr. George Sautelle, now long settled at Byrimine station, near Cloncurry. These cattle passed by Goondiwindi, through the Downs country, by Yandilla, to the Dawson, by Rockhampton, and then by Fort Cooper and Bowen on to the Clarke River. These, according to the Land Office records, were the first runs taken up in the pastoral district of Burke. Their cattle were supplemented by other large mobs, all destined to form new stations in the far north, in connection with Mr. W. Glen Walker, of Sydney, an enterprising and speculative merchant. In 1864 the country first taken up by this firm was sold or transferred, and the cattle (as many as ten thousand head), were removed to the Lower Flinders then quite unoccupied. They travelled through Betts' Gorge, a creek forcing its way through the basalt to join the Flinders. A large stretch of well-watered country on the Saxby Creek, known as Taldora and Millungerra was taken up by James Gibson in 1864. The first man to open the way to the Albert at Burketown was Mr. N. Buchanan, with cattle from Mount Cornish and Bowen Downs on the Thomson River; he selected Beame's Brook station on the Albert, eighteen miles above the present site of Burketown, and also occupied another run on the Landsborough River, a tributary of the Leichhardt, on a waterhole about twelve miles long. Following him in order of succession came Mr. J. G. Macdonald's cattle from the Burdekin. These travelled by a different route via the Einasleigh and Etheridge Rivers, the latter called after Mr. D. O. Etheridge, one of the overlanders, a man long resident there afterwards, and well known. They followed the route opened up by Mr. J. G. Macdonald when on his private exploring expedition to the Gulf country a year or two before. The country this stock occupied was on the Leichhardt River, at a place called Floraville, situated where a great bar of rocks crosses the river above all tidal waters, the falls being about twenty feet in height. Another run this firm took up at the same time was situated on the Gregory River, and called Gregory Downs; but this country was abandoned later on, and is now held by Watson Bros.; it is an excellent piece of well-grassed cattle country, watered by the finest perennial river in North Queensland, a clear, flowing stream of water, shaded by palms, pandanus, and ti-trees. The Gregory River, named by the late Mr. W. Landsborough in honor of the Honorable A. C. Gregory, M.L.C., C.M.G., the well-known explorer and scientist, has never been known to go dry. In March, 1896, Mr. G. Phillips, C.E., estimated the flow of the