Late when we started; we,
however, crossed the low ridges at the head of the Light, and entering
upon extensive plains to the north, we descended to a channel, which I
took to be the head of a watercourse called the "Gilbert."
Finding here some tolerably good water and abundance of grass, I halted
the party for the night, though we were almost wholly without firewood,
an inconvenience that we felt considerably, as the nights now were very
cold and frosty. Our stage had been fourteen miles to-day, running at
first over low barren ridges, and then crossing rich plains of a loose
brown soil, but very heavy for the drays to travel over.
At our camp, a steep bank of the watercourse presented an extensive
geological section, but there was nothing remarkable in it, the substrata
consisting only of a kind of pipe clay.
June 25. - Upon starting this morning we traversed a succession of fine
open and very grassy plains, from which we ascended the low ridges
forming the division of the waters to the north and south. In the latter
direction, we had left the heads of the "Gilbert" and "Wakefield" chains
of ponds, whilst in descending in the former we came upon the "Hill," a
fine chain of ponds taking its course through a very extensive and grassy
valley, but with little timber of any kind growing near it.
