Journal of an Expedition into the Interior of Tropical Australia, in Search of a Route from Sydney to the Gulf of Carpentaria (1848)Mitchell, T. L. (Thomas Livingstone)
History
Journal of an Expedition into the Interior of Tropical Australia, in Search of a Route from Sydney to the Gulf of Carpentaria (1848)
Mitchell, T. L. (Thomas Livingstone)
New South Wales -- Discovery and exploration; Queensland -- Discovery and exploration
that this carrot would have been found a good vegetable. The GEIJERA
PARVIFLORA again attracted attention, by the strong pungent odour of its
long narrow leaves; and we here observed the EREMOPHILA MITCHELLII, in
the form of a shrub, from ten to twelve feet high. Its wood was
remarkable from a perfume like roses.
22D AUGUST.--The morning was beautiful, our way plainly marked and
sufficiently open, although it led wholly through a scrub for twelve
miles. Flowers, the product of the late rain, were beginning to deck the
earth, and water lodged in every hollow. We arrived early at Camp LVIII.,
and encamped 300 yards beyond it, to be nearer to a plain of good grass.
Thermometer, at sunrise, 25 deg.; at noon, 69 deg.; at 4 P. M., 72 deg.; at 9, 43 deg.;--
with wet bulb, 40 deg..
23D AUGUST.--The route back to the next camp went too far to the
westward; and I therefore endeavoured to make a direct cut back to it. We
thus encountered much scrub, and twice crossed the river. A bank, or
berg, of water-worn pebbles, appeared on the west side of the river; and,
to the eastward, a hill was visible amongst the trees. The river channel
was full of water, and seemed to have been even running, with the late
rain. The whole journey was through scrub; but this was chiefly of
rosewood, which is not nearly so formidable an impediment as brigalow. We
encamped on the river bank before we got so far as Camp LVII., at a spot
where there was grass, the ground generally about that camp being very
bare, although a fresh spring was observable, which would soon alter the
case. At this camp I found, on a very low bush with a small leaf,
splendid specimens of the fruit of a CAPPARIS, in a dry state, containing
seeds. A crop of young fruit appeared also on the same bushes. This must
be a very different species from the C. MITCHELII; the bush seldom
exceeding the height and size of a gooseberry bush, although the fruit
was larger than that of the tree CAPPARIS, and of a more uniform size and
spherical shape. It seemed to grow only within the tropic. Thermometer,
at sunrise, 28 deg.; at noon, 73 deg.; at 4 P. M., 75 deg.; at 9, 44 deg.;--with wet
bulb, 41 deg..
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