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
5TH to 9TH NOVEMBER.--These days I devoted to the protracting of angles
taken on the Victoria, and the last day to writing my despatch to the
Government; and on this morning (the 9th) I sent Mr. Kennedy, followed by
Corporal Graham and John Douglas, to examine the country in the direction
of the furthest point attained by me on my journey of 1831; that was on
the Barwan (Karaula) in latitude 29 deg. 2' S., and bearing about 20 deg. E. of
S. from this camp. A chain of ponds, called the "Mooni" ponds, were said
to water the intervening country, and I wished to ascertain whether they
were favourable for the connection of our recently explored route, with
the termination of that marked out by me in 1831, when my journey,
undertaken expressly with the same objects in view, was accidentally
frustrated.
Corporal Graham was to go forward to the postoffice at Tamworth with the
despatches, when Mr. Kennedy, having ascertained the situation of the
Mooni ponds, should return. In the meanwhile, I continued to finish maps
and drawings, although suffering much inconvenience from excessive heat,
under a tent infested with numerous flies. The banks of the river were
gay with the purple flowers of SWAINSONA CORONILLOEFOLIA; FUSANUS
ACUMINATUS, produced its crimson-coloured fruit, which Yuranigh brought
us from the bush; the spotted bark tree, ELOEODENDRON MACULOSUM, was also
in these scrubs. A yellow-flowered herbaceous plant, has been determined
by Professor De Vriese to be identical with the Swan River GOODENIA
PULCHELLA. A salt plant, greedily eaten by the cattle, proved to be a
variety of the ATRIPLEX NUMMULARIS, observed in February on the
Macquarie. A species of GREWIA, in fruit, appeared to be the same as the
G. RICHARDIANA of Walpers. The TRICHINIUM FUSIFORME R. Br., was covered
with its globular, shaggy flower-heads, in the sandy open parts of the
forest. A very remarkable shrub, five or six feet high, with the foliage
of a Phyllirea, and spreading branches, was loaded with short racemes of
white flowers. It proved to be a plant of the natural order of Bixads,
and allied to MELICYTUS, but with hermaphrodite flowers.[*] A submerged
plant, in the water, was found to be a new species of MYRIOPHYLLUM, with
tuberculate fruit.[**] CASSIA CORONILLOIDES, a low shrub, was in
flower.[***] A shrubby MYOPORUM put forth sweet and edible fruit. A new
ELOEODENDRON, with small panicles of white flowers, formed a forest tree
twenty feet high, remarkable for its spotted bark.[****] A fir-leaved
CASSIA, with thin, sickle-leaved pods, formed a bush, from four to five
feet high.[*****] A new blue-flowered MORGANIA, decorated the river-
bank[******]; lastly, a new species of indigo[*******], completed the
list of plants we gathered at this season at the camp over St. George's
Bridge.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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