Volume II Part 3 (1/2)

Mount Cunningham consists of ferruginous sandstone. The sun had reached the horizon before I left the summit, which I did not until I had obtained an angle on every visible point. We arrived at the camp soon after seven o'clock. Lat.i.tude by an observation of Cor Leonis 33 degrees 15 minutes 27 seconds South.

MR. OXLEY'S TREE.

March 30.

I ascertained accidentally this morning that we were abreast of the spot where Mr. Oxley left the Lachlan and proceeded southward. This I learnt from a marked tree which a native pointed out to me distant about 250 yards south from our camp, on the opposite side of a branch of the river.

On this tree were still legible the names of Mr. Oxley and Mr. Evans; and although the inscription had been there nineteen years the tree seemed still in full vigour; nor could its girth have altered much, judging from the letters which were still as sharp as when first cut, only the bark having overgrown part of them had been recently cleared away a little as if to render the letters more legible. I endeavoured to preserve still longer an inscription which had withstood the fires of the bush and the tomahawks of the natives for such a length of time by making a drawing of it as it then appeared.

By Mr. Oxley's journal we learn that where the river formed two branches he, on the 17th of May, 1817, hauled up his boats, and on the following day commenced his intended journey towards the south-east. But our lat.i.tudes also a.s.sisted us in verifying the spot. Mr. Oxley made the lat.i.tude of his camp (doubtless near the tree) 33 degrees 15 minutes 34 seconds South which gives a difference of seven seconds for the 250 yards between the tree and my camp. The variation of the needle Mr. Oxley found to be here, in 1817, 7 degrees 0 minutes 8 seconds East and I had made it at the last camp (Merimbah) 8 degrees 54 minutes 15 seconds East, or nearly two degrees more, in a lapse of 19 years. The longitude of this point as now ascertained by trigonometrical measurement from Parramatta was 147 degrees 33 minutes 50 seconds East, or 17 minutes 50 seconds (equal on this parallel to 17 1/4 miles) nearer to Sydney than it is laid down by Mr. Oxley.

We proceeded from this camp towards the southern extremity of Mount Cunningham, under which a small branch of the Lachlan pa.s.ses so close that the party was occupied an hour and a half in removing rocks to open a pa.s.sage for the carts. We then got into an open country in which we soon saw the same dry branch of the Lachlan before us; but we turned more to the north-west until we reached a slightly undulated surface. No branch of the river extends to the northward of Mount Cunningham as shown on Mr. Oxley's map; but a small tributary watercourse, then dry, skirts the eastern side of the hill, and enters that branch of the Lachlan which we were upon.

Yesterday and this day had been so excessively hot (82 degrees in the shade) that I confidently antic.i.p.ated rain, especially when the sky became cloudy to the westward, while the wind blew steadily from the opposite quarter. A dense body of vapour in the shape of stratus, or fall cloud of the meteorologist, was at the same time stretching eastward along the distant horizon on both sides of us. After crossing some sound, open plains of stiff clay, guided by the natives, we gained an extensive pond of muddy water and encamped on a hill of red sand on its northern bank, and under shelter of a grove of callitris trees.

RAIN.

The wind now began to blow and the sky, to my great delight, being at length overcast, promised rain enough to fill the streams and waterholes: at twilight it began to come down. In the woods we pa.s.sed through this day we found a curious willow-like acacia with the leaves slightly covered with bloom, and sprinkled on the underside with numerous reddish minute drops of resin.* The Pittosporum angustifolium we also recognised here, loaded with its singular orange-coloured bivalved fruit.

(*Footnote. This is allied in some respects to A. verniciflua and exudans, but is a very distinct and well-marked species. A. salicina, Lindley ma.n.u.scripts; glaucescens, ramulis angulatis, phyllodiis divaricatis lineari et oblongo-lanceolatis utrinque angustatis obtusissimis uninerviis venulis pinnatis: ipso apice glandulosis subtus resinoso-punctatis, capitulis 3-5 racemosis phyllodiis triplo brevioribus.)

March 31.

It rained during the night and this morning the sky seemed as if it would continue; the mercury in the barometer also falling, we halted. On a dry sandhill, with wood and water at hand, we were well prepared to await the results of a flood; some good gra.s.s also was found for the cattle on firm ground at the distance of about two miles.

GOOBANG CREEK.

Mount Allan (Wollar of the natives) lay north-east by north, at a distance of 3 3/4 miles. It was not a conspicuous or commanding hill, but between it and our camp we this day discovered a feature of considerable importance. This was the Goobang creek of our former journey, to all appearance here as great a river as the Bogan and indeed its channel, where we formerly saw it, contained deep ponds of clear water at a season when the muddy holes of the Bogan had nearly failed us. Here the Goobang much resembled that river in the depth of its bed and the character of its banks: and its sources and tributaries must be also similar to those of the Bogan. Hervey's range gives birth to the one, Croker's range to the other and, their respective courses being along the opposite sides of the higher land extending westward between the Lachlan and Macquarie, all their tributaries must fall from the same ridge. Of these Mr. Oxley crossed several in his route from the Lachlan to the Macquarie; Emmeline's Valley creek belonging to the basin of the Goobang; Coysgaine's ponds and Allan's water to that of the Bogan. It was rather unfortunate, considering how much has been said about the Lachlan receiving no tributaries in its long course, that Mr. Oxley left unexplored that part where a tributary of such importance as the Goobang joins it; especially as the floods of this stream lay the country below Mount Cunningham under water, and are the sole cause of that swampy appearance which Mr. Oxley observed from the hill on looking westward. It would appear that this traveller's route northward was nearly parallel to the general course of the Goobang. The name this stream receives from the natives here is Billibang, Goobang being considered but one of its tributaries. Its course completes the a.n.a.logy between the rivers and plains on each side, and the supposed disappearance of the channel of the Lachlan seemed consequently as doubtful as the mysterious termination of the Macquarie.

April 1.

The rain continuing, the party remained encamped. The barometer had fallen since we came here from 29.442, at which it stood last night at ten, to 29.180, which I noted this morning at six: the thermometer continuing about 60 degrees of Fahrenheit.

LARGE FISHES.

On dragging our net through the muddy pond we captured two fishes, but of monstrous size, one weighing 17 pounds, the other about 12 pounds.

Although very different in shape, I recognised in them the fish of the perch kind with large scales* and the eel-fish** formerly caught by us in the Namoi. But the former when taken in that river was coa.r.s.e and tasted of mud, whereas this ruffe, although so large was not coa.r.s.e, but rich, and of excellent flavour--and so fat that the flakes fell into crumbs when fried. This day a bird of a new species was shot by Roach. It was of a swallow kind, about the size of a snipe, of a leaden colour, with dark head and wings.

(*Footnote. Cernua bidyana.)

(**Footnote. Plotosus tanda.n.u.s.)

HEAVY RAIN.

April 2.

The rain continued through the night and this morning it fell rather heavily, so that enough of water could be gathered from the surface of the plains near our camp to preclude the necessity for our having recourse to the muddy pool. The barometer began to rise slowly from seven in the morning, when it had reached its minimum; but the weather continued hazy, with drizzling rain (from the south-west) until four o'clock, when the clouds slowly drew up. The plains were not yet at all saturated, although become too soft for our carts. The evening was cloudy, but by ten o'clock the state of the barometer was such as to leave little doubt about the return of fair weather. We this day found in the woods to the northward a most beautiful species of Trichinium, with spiky feathered pale yellow flowers, sometimes as much as six inches long.*

(*Footnote. Tr. n.o.bile, Lindley ma.n.u.scripts; foliis caulinis obovatis cuspidatis subundulatis ramisque corymbosis angulatis glabris, spica cylindracea: rachi lanata, calycis laciniis 3 acutis 2 retusis, bracteis p.u.b.erulis. Differs from Tr. densum, Cunningham in the bracts not being villous at the base, and from T. macrocephalum, R. Br. in having much larger flowers, which are yellow not lilac, and in three of the segments of the calyx being acute.)