Journal of an Overland Expedition in Australia: From Moreton Bay to Port Essington, a distance of upwards of 3000 miles, during the years 1844-1845Leichhardt, Ludwig
History
Journal of an Overland Expedition in Australia: From Moreton Bay to Port Essington, a distance of upwards of 3000 miles, during the years 1844-1845
Leichhardt, Ludwig
Australia -- Description and travel; Australia -- Discovery and exploration
April 11.--We continued our journey up the river, in a W.N.W. direction,
for about ten miles. The first part of our journey lay through a most
beautiful country. The hollows along the river were covered with a dense
sward of various grasses, and the forest was open as far as the eye could
reach. Farther on, however, we occasionally met with patches of Vitex
scrub, and crossed some stony ridges. A small river joined from the
north-east, at about a mile and a half from the last camp, and also two
large creeks from the south-west. I ascended the hills opposite our camp,
and looked over an immense and apparently flat country, out of which
small peaks and short ranges rose. The hills on which I stood were
composed of Pegmatite, with patches of white Mica in large leaflets.
During the journey we found granite changing into gneiss, diorite, and
quartz rock.
On the rocky crest of the hill, I gathered the pretty red and black seeds
of a leguminous climbing shrub (Abrus precatorius). Phonolithic or
basaltic pebbles made me suppose that we were near to a change of
country. Our latitude was 19 degrees 58 minutes 11 seconds.
April 12.--We had scarcely travelled a mile and a half, when we had to
cross a large creek, which increased in size higher up. Box-tree flats
and open Vitex scrub extended along its banks, and the latter, according
to Mr. Roper's account, changed into dense Bricklow scrub. At the
junction of the creek and the river, we came on a dyke of basalt, the
flat summit of which was so rough that we were compelled to travel along
the flats of the creek, which for a long distance ran parallel to the
Burdekin. The soil on the basalt was so shallow that it sustained only a
scanty vegetation of grass and some few scattered narrow-leaved Ironbark
trees. We crossed this dyke, however, and at about three miles descended
from it into a fine narrow-leaved Ironbark flat, extending along the
river, in which another large creek from the south-west joined the
Burdekin. The flat was bounded by hills of limestone, cropping out in
large blocks, with visible stratification, but without fossils. Having
passed the third creek in the course of this day's journey, we encamped
on the commencement of another basaltic dyke. The bed of the creek was
full of blocks of Sienite, of hornblende Porphyry, of greenish Pegmatite,
and of cellular Basalt. The river here formed a large sheet of water;
large masses of a white Sienite protruded out of it, opposite the
junction of the creek. The opposite bank exhibited a very perfect and
instructive geological section of variously bent and lifted strata of
limestone, which was afterwards found to contain innumerable fossils,
particularly corals and a few bivalve shells. The Rev. W. B. Clarke, of
Paramatta, kindly undertook to examine the fossils brought from this
locality. One he determined to be an undescribed species of Cyathophyllum,
and has done me the honour to give my name to it [Refer Note 1 at end of
chapter].
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