Up in the northern provinces where, perhaps, if anything, the contrast of these flowing streams beneath the parched surroundings is more striking than in the more temperate southern clime, there are some mighty leaks in the sides of the tableland. The Gregory River, in the Burke district of Queensland has one unvarying flow; a strong running stream, never lessened by the longest drought, but gliding beneath cool masses of tropical foliage and gurgling over rocky bars when all around is dry. What a great heritage here runs to waste unheeded. In the northern territory, from out another vent, springs the Flora River, whose waters ripple over limestone bars in miniature cascades, from pool to pool, like pigmy reproductions of the lost terraces of New Zealand. Follow the edge of the great tableland around, and amongst the deep seams and fissures of its abrupt descent coastward, we suddenly come, midst rugged barreness and gloomy grandeur, upon these messengers from the inner earth. Some enjoying the sunlight, but for a brief span, disappearing again for ever as, suddenly as they were up-borne; others finding their way down to the habitable lowlands and to the sea. But, unfortunately, all these springs, some of great volume, find issue on the outer edge of the range; the gradual descent that marks the inner slope is not the scene of these outbursts. Here, and throughout the interior, the waters from below rise in a way that seems to best befit the weird solitude of the great plain. At times, on a bare, baked mound elevated above the surface, there is a dwarf crater filled with water that never overflows, and when tapped and exhausted, rises once more to its former level. Again, canopied by giant ti-trees amid the shrill shrieking of thousands of noisy parrots, the traveller can pick his way along the treacherous paths that wind amongst the hot springs. Or at the foot of a low range a scanty trickle fills a rocky pool, and thence is lost. In the bed of some far inland creek, the water rises in the sand in shallow pools, during the dark hours of night, to vanish once more beneath the sun. And in low caverns in the limestone hills, down some deep fissure, can be seen the waters of a stream, whose rise and course no man has ever traced. Again a solitary lagoon is found whereon no lily grows, and wherein no fish swims. Where the belated bushman camping for the night, finds the next morning that the water has sunk many feet, or perhaps has risen, when no rain has fallen far or near for months. All these signs and tokens from the great sea beneath us may serve as guides to the end.