Besides the destructive poison plant, there is the evil-smelling repellant spinifex growing through this strip of vile country, as well as a low, close scrub, through all of which stock has to be got before the open plain country is reached. A great scarcity of surface water, and low stony ridges with heavy patches of red sand, are characteristic of poison country. Glad indeed were the pioneers to leave it behind, and with great satisfaction to stand on the rocky eminence that bounded it on the western side, whence they looked down the open valley of the Jardine, and beheld the downs and the grassy plains of the Flinders spreading out before them for many miles. The sight came as a surprise and relief after so much disagreeable travelling through the worst portion of North Queensland, especially should a thunderstorm have passed over the country recently and caused a spring in the herbage. The Flinders River flowing to the west and north-west towards the Gulf of Carpentaria, through most extensive plains and downs, traverses a different geological formation to that which the pioneers crossed when coming from the east coast. The edge of the great cretaceous formation which forms the major portion of the western country, is here entered on for the first time, and a new strange world seems to open up. A new fauna and flora is evident on the very first entrance into the new region; the birds are different and more numerous; galas, parrots, and pigeons abound, and assure the newcomer that he has found a new pastoral country, the grasses and herbage of which are more permanent, enduring and nutritive than those he has hitherto met with. The downs, covered with the Mitchell grass, with scarcely a bush or shrub to break the monotony, stretch away as far as the eye can see; while the heavy timber along the creeks and rivers indicates their course. A dreary monotony prevails on the western rivers, the same everlasting plains, the same great grassy waste of downs like an ocean without its interesting motion. Far ahead can be seen the river timber winding through the brown plains, so that the traveller can see a whole day's stage ahead. For over a hundred of miles along the north-eastern, or right bank of the Flinders River, is a tableland of basaltic formation, near which the river winds its course; a dark fringe of rocks rises abruptly, broken here and there by indentations through which flow creeks to join the main channel. The cone of eruption for this vast overflow of lava is said to be somewhere about Mount Sturgeon, to the eastward. The lava has flowed over the original sandstone formation, and formed a level tableland now broken and covered with black, porous blocks of lava of every size. It is utilised for pasture purposes, notwithstanding its forbidding aspect.