Spinifex and Sand

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letters. My first, of course, was to my Syndicate, to report our past movements and future pl

of the various formations; for in travelling from east to west, or vice versa, one crosses a succession of parallel belts, first a sand-plain, then a ridge of granite, next a timbered flat, then a stretch of auriferous country, with possibly a belt of flat salt-lake country on either side. Since the

nd shady kurrajongs, we found a curious little avenue of stones. These were piled up into heaps laid in two parallel rows, and at intervals between the heaps would be a large boulder; evidently this was the work of aboriginals, but what meaning to attach to it we could not think. The beginning of our journey promised well for water, for we were again favoured by a local thunderstorm which, in clay-pans and swamps, left a plentiful supply. Mr. Anderson had told me of some hills in which he had found gold in small quantities, and sure enough wherever we tried a "dish of di

ity, two emus, peering now this way, now that, examining our packs and other gear with interest and delight. Choosing the younger bird, I took aim with my Winchester, and dropped him; the report of the rifle startled my companions from their sleep with the thought that we were perhaps attacked by the blacks, for emus are even less numerous than they. But their surprise was not

lt than an occasional pin's-head of gold, we turned our faces to the north, pa

holding four to five feet of water. Immediately after rain all clay-pans are fresh, before long some will turn salt; those containing drinkable water are often distinguishable by the growth of cane grass which

thod of clearing muddy clay-pan water is by dropping into it a sort of powdery gypsum, called "Kopi" by the natives, which is usually to be found round the margin of the salt lakes-a wonderful provision of Nature, without which the water after a short time would be useless, becoming as it does red and thick, and of the consistency of strong cocoa. Amongst the many

to tinsmiths and others engaged in the manufacture of condensers. Certainly the scarcity of water was not an unmixed curse, for it gave employment to many who would otherwise have been hard put to it to gain a living. Dam-makers, well-sinkers, water-carte

cracked into all manner of patterns by the sun's heat; around us the stillness of death, nothing astir unless it be the constant shimmering haze of heat which strikes our faces like the blast from a furnace. Rain falls, and within a few hours the a

ucks, geese, and swans on Lake Augusta-a salt lake in

ain fell in the district until December 25th, but I ascertained afterwards that rain fell at Lake Carey, one hundred miles north of Lake Lapage about the same date that we had seen the ducks. The exact date I am not sure of, but in any case the ducks either foresaw the rain or knew that rain had fallen at least two