Latitude by a Trianguli Australis 17 degrees 1 minute 31 seconds. NATIVE FISHING NETS. 13th August. Left the camp at 7.0 a.m. and continued a south-easterly course, crossing a succession of sandy valleys and broken sandstone hills; the strata horizontal, and lamina dipping to the north and east generally, but sometimes in the opposite direction; the soil poor and sandy, producing little besides white-gum and triodia. At noon ascended a high ridge, from which we saw a broad valley to the south-east, beyond which was a range of flat-topped hills terminating abruptly at the northern end, which bore east by north. Descending by a rocky ravine, at 1.30 p.m. reached a fine creek, on which we camped. This creek had deep pools of water fifty yards wide; but the steep rocky character of its banks caused the channel to appear larger than if it had been in a more level country. Under some large rocks Dean found a fishing-net made neatly of twisted bark, the mesh one and a half inch, the length perhaps thirty feet; some fishing spears showed the marks of iron tools. The rocks in this part of the country often contain angular fragments of the lower strata; thus the limestone includes fragments of chert and jasper, and the sandstone pieces of limestone, but I could not detect either granite, quartz, or slate. Latitude by a Trianguli Australis 17 degrees 11 minutes 1 second. 14th August. At 6.20 a.m. we were again in the saddle, and steered south-east across very rocky hills till 8.0, when we entered a fine valley with low hills of limestone and trap, well grassed and thinly wooded with box-trees and acacia; at 10.0 ascended a rough sandstone range with white-gum, acacia, and triodia; at 11.0 again descended into a valley bounded by sandstone cliffs on the northern side, and camped at a fine pool of water in a small creek at 12.5. Several trees near this pool of water had been marked by the blacks, the bark having been removed, the wood was painted yellow with brown spots at regular intervals, and vertical waved lines in black. It is evident from the outline of the hills that we are travelling on the edge of the tableland of Northern Australia, and this accounts for the small size of the watercourses, while the abrupt and broken nature of the hills has caused the rocks to form channels of sufficient size to retain water throughout the year, while the same disruption of the strata has exposed the limestone and trap-rock, has caused fertile patches of country, and thus enabled us to traverse a country which is otherwise barren and inhospitable in the extreme, our chief difficulty being the rocky character of the country, which can only be traversed with well-shod horses. It is possible that some small tracts of available country may exist between our track and the shores of the Gulf of Carpentaria, but to the south there is little to expect besides a barren sandy desert, as on every occasion that the tableland has been ascended,