The Continued Heavy Rains Which Had Fallen For More Than Three Weeks Before My Departure From Adelaide, On The 8th

July, and for nearly a fortnight afterwards, had left the surface water in pools on the scrubby plains, and in

Some of the ravines; but on proceeding north, it was evident that these rains had not been there so general or so heavy, though by steering from point to point of the hills, after crossing the Black Rock Range at Rowe's Creek, I was able to find sufficient water for the horses, and to replenish the kegs every second or third day. From this spot, the plains, as well as the higher land, appeared evidently to dip away to the north-east, the barren hills all diminishing in elevation, and the deep watercourses from Flinders range all crossing the plains in that direction. In one of these watercourses, the Siccus (lat. about 31 degrees 55 minutes), whose section nearly equals that of the Murray, there were indications of not very remote floods having risen to between twenty and thirty feet above its bed, plainly marked by large gum-trees lodged in the forks of the standing trees, and lying high up on its banks, on one of which I remarked dead leaves still on the branches; and in another creek (Pasmore River), lat. 31 degrees 29 minutes, a strong current was running at the spot where we struck it (owing, I suppose, to recent heavy rains among the hills from whence it has its source), but below this point the bed was like that of all the other creeks, as dry as if no rain had ever fallen, and with occasional patches of various shrubs, and salt water tea-tree growing in it.

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