Three Expeditions into the Interior of Eastern Australia, Volume 2: With Descriptions of the Recently Explored Region of Australia Felix, and of the Present Colony of New South WalesMitchell, T. L. (Thomas Livingstone)
History
Three Expeditions into the Interior of Eastern Australia, Volume 2: With Descriptions of the Recently Explored Region of Australia Felix, and of the Present Colony of New South Wales
Mitchell, T. L. (Thomas Livingstone)
Australia -- Discovery and exploration; Mitchell, T. L. (Thomas Livingstone), 1792-1855
NEARLY DRY.
The uniformity of breadth and width in this streamlet and its tortuous
course were curious, especially as it must lead the floods of the Lachlan
almost directly back from the general direction of their current to
supply a lake. Thus the fluviatile process seemed to be reversed here,
the tendency of this river being not to carry surface waters off, but
rather to spread over land where none could otherwise be found, those
brought from a great distance. The particular position of this portion of
depressed surface being so far distant from the general course of the
river and the communication between it and the river by a backwater so
shallow and small, the lake can only receive a small share of the river
deposits and this only from the waters of its highest floods. We found
the "noble lake" (as it appeared when discovered by Mr. Oxley) now for
the most part a plain covered with luxuriant grass; some water, it is
true, lodged on the most eastern extremity, but nowhere to a greater
depth than a foot. Innumerable ducks took refuge there and also a great
number of black swans and pelicans, the last standing high upon their
legs above the remains of Regent's lake. We found the water perfectly
sweet even in this shallow state. It abounds with the large freshwater
mussel which was the chief food of the natives at the time we visited it.
DEAD TREES IN IT.
On its northern margin and a good way within the former boundary of the
lake stood dead trees of a full-grown size which had been apparently
killed by too much water, plainly showing, like the trees similarly
situated in Lake George and Lake Bathurst, to what long periods the
extremes of drought and moisture have extended, and may again extend, in
this singular country.
ROCKS NEAR IT.
That the lake is sometimes a splendid sheet of water was obvious in its
line of shores. These were overhung on the south-western side by rocky
eminences which in some parts consisted of a red calcareous tuff
containing fragments of schist; in others, of trap-rock or basalt which
was very hard and black. The opposite shore was lower, with water-worn
cliffs of reddish clay. By these cliffs and the beaches of drifted sand
under them, we perceived that the prevailing winds in all times of high
flood came from the south-west; the north-east side being very different
from the opposite, which was free from sand and bore no such marks of
chaffing waves.
TRAP AND TUFF.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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