Explorations in Australia: The Journals of John McDouall Stuart During the Years 1858, 1859, 1860, 1861, and 1862, When He Fixed the Centre of the Continent and Successfully Crossed It from Sea to SeaStuart, John McDouall
History
Explorations in Australia: The Journals of John McDouall Stuart During the Years 1858, 1859, 1860, 1861, and 1862, When He Fixed the Centre of the Continent and Successfully Crossed It from Sea to Sea
Stuart, John McDouall
Australia -- Discovery and exploration; Stuart, John McDouall, 1815-1866
On visiting Hergott Springs, Mr. Waterhouse learnt that Mr. Burtt, whose
station* is only a few miles distant, in opening these springs discovered
some fossil bones, casts of which were forwarded to Professor Owen, who
pronounced them to be the remains of a gigantic extinct marsupial, named
Diprotodon Australis. (* Hergott Springs were only discovered and named
by Stuart three years before, yet we now find a station close by them.
The explorer is not far ahead of his fellow-colonists, as is well
remarked by the Edinburgh Review for July, 1862: "Australian occupation
has kept close on the heels of Australian discovery.") Bones of this
animal have also been found in a newer tertiary formation in New South
Wales. Mr. Waterhouse considers that a great tertiary drift extends over
this part of the country, obscuring and concealing at no great depth
below the surface many springs, which may hereafter be discovered as the
country becomes better known.
The Louden Spa is a hot spring arising out of a small hillock, and
proceeds from the fissures of volcanic rock. This water is medicinal, but
not disagreeable to the taste: the damper made with it was very light,
and tasted like soda-bread.
In his remarks on the second division Mr. Waterhouse states much that is
valuable. He estimates the height of Mount Hay at two thousand feet,
regarding it as the highest point of the McDonnell Range, which is the
natural centre of this part of the continent. Mr. Waterhouse only saw
Chambers Pillar from a distance, but he had an opportunity of examining a
smaller hill of the same character, and found it to be composed of a soft
loose argillaceous rock, at the top of which was a thin stratum of a hard
siliceous rock, much broken up. "The isolated hills appear to have been
at some remote period connected, but from the soft and loose nature of
the lower rock meeting with the action of water, had arisen a succession
of landslips. These have been washed away and others have followed in
their turn; the upper rock, from being undermined, has fallen down and
broken up, supplying the peculiar siliceous stones so widely distributed
on parts of the surface of the country."
The vegetation of this district is poor; the myall is scarce, but the
mulga (Acacia aneura) generally plentiful. Both these shrubs are species
of acacia, the myall being of much larger growth and longer lived than
the mulga. Nutritious grass is seldom found except in the immediate
vicinity of the creeks, and the scrubs are very extensive.
Mr. Waterhouse collected a great number of specimens of natural history,
but, from want of the convenience for carrying them, many of the more
delicate objects were broken.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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