I was now convinced that the rainy season had set in near the sea coast; for the clouds which came from that direction, had evidently been charged with rain; but, in passing over a large tract of dry country, they were exhausted of their moisture, and the north-easterly winds were too weak to carry them quickly so far inland.
The whole country I had travelled over, is composed of sandstone, with probably occasional outbreaks of igneous rocks, as indicated by the rich black soil.

The plains and creeks abound in fossil wood, changed into iron-ore and silica.

The soil is generally good, but some of the sandy flats are rotten: and the ridges are covered with pebbles.
The trees, with the exception of the flooded-gum, are of stunted habit; and scrub is here developed ad infinitum.

A Grevillea (G.ceratophylla R.Br. ?) with pinnatifid leaves, a small tree from fifteen to twenty feet high, and about four inches in diameter; a Melaleuca about the same size, with stiff lanceolate leaves, about two inches long and half an inch broad, and slightly foliaceous bark; and an Acacia with glaucous bipinnate leaves, of the section of the brush Acacias of Moreton Bay--grew on the sandy soil along the ridges; and a handsome Convolvulus with pink flowers adorned the rich plain south-east of Mount Stewart.

I examined the wood of all the arborescent Proteaceae which I met with, and observed in all of them, with the exception of Persoonia, the great development of the medullary rays, as it exists in several species of Casuarina.
On the 23rd, 24th, and 25th January, the party moved over the country which I had reconnoitred, to a place about twenty-five miles north-west from Mount Stewart's Creek, and about thirty-four miles from the Mackenzie.