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
The general course of the creek was north-north-west: for the first ten
miles it was without water, but its middle and upper course was well
provided with fine reedy holes, the constant supply of water in which was
indicated by Nymphaeas, and other aquatic plants. At its left side near
the junction I observed, as before mentioned, a coarse grained sandstone,
and, at less than a mile higher up, I found flint rock; and, wherever I
examined afterwards, the rocks proved to be coarse grained granite and
pegmatite, the decomposition of which formed a sandy soil on the slopes,
and clayey flats along the creek. The latter, however, were very limited.
The ant-hills were intimately connected with the rock, as the ants
derived their materials for building from the minute particles of clay
among the sand. The primitive rock was cut with deep gullies and ravines,
and several tributary creeks joined Big Ant-hill Creek from the primitive
side. The basaltic table land, which extended all along the right side of
the creek, formed steep slopes into its valley, and were generally topped
with loose basaltic boulders. The table land was highest near the creek,
and its drainage was not towards the creek, but to the south-west, into
the valley of lagoons. White quartz rock was observed in a few places on
the right side of the creek, where the primitive rock seemed to encroach
into the territory of the basalt; and felspathic porphyry formed probably
a dyke in the pegmatite, but was most evidently broken by the basalt.
Where the upper part of the creek formed a shallow watercourse, and
turned altogether into the primitive formation, a plain came down from
the west-north-west with a shallow watercourse, which continued the
separation of the two formations; the right side of the plain being
basaltic, the soil of the Box and Ironbark forest loamy, with sharp
pieces of the rock; the left side being sandy, and covered with a very
pleasing poplar gum forest, in which the grotesque ant-hills were
exceedingly numerous. About two miles higher up the plain, separated into
several distinct plains, the largest of which was from twelve to fifteen
miles long, and from two to three miles broad, and came from Mount Lang;
another plain came from an isolated razorback hill, and a third continued
on the line of contact of the basaltic and primitive rocks. The upper
parts of the small creeks, which come down in these plains, were full of
water, and had their source generally between heaps of bare basaltic
rocks, surrounded by rich grass, and a scanty scrub of Pittosporum, of
the native mulberry, of the fig-tree, and of several vines, with
Polypodiums, Osmundas, and Caladiums growing between them.
Several other hills and mountains rose on the table land, generally with
open plains at their base. The greater part, however, was open forest,
principally of narrow-leaved Ironbark and Box, and occasionally
poplar-gum.
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