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 eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 488 pages of information about Journal of an Overland Expedition in Australia .

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 eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 488 pages of information about Journal of an Overland Expedition in Australia .
The river became considerably narrower, but still had a fine stream.  Thunder-storms had probably fallen higher up its course, causing a fresh; for its waters, hitherto clear, had become turbid.  Narrow patches of brush were occasionally met with along its banks, and I noticed several brush trees, common in other parts of the country.  Besides the clustered fig, and another species with rough leaves and small downy purple fruit, there were a species of Celtis; the Melia Azederach (White Cedar); a species of Phyllanthus, (a shrub from six to ten feet high); an Asclepiadaceous climber, with long terete twin capsules; and several Cucurbitaceae, one with oblong fruit about an inch long, another with a round fruit half an inch in diameter, red and white, resembling a gooseberry; a third was of an oblong form, two inches and a half long and one broad; and a fourth was of the size and form of an orange, and of a beautiful scarlet colour:  the two last had an excessively bitter taste.  The night and morning were cloudy, with a southerly wind, but it cleared up at eleven o’clock.  Cumuli in the afternoon, with wind from the south-east.

From our camp we saw a range of hills, bearing between N. 5 degrees W. and N. 10 degrees W.; they were about three miles distant.  I called them “Thacker’s Range,” in acknowledgment of the support I received from—­Thacker, Esq., of Sidney.

April 9.—­We travelled about nine miles W. by N., and made our latitude 20 degrees 8 minutes 26 seconds.  The western end of Thacker’s Range bore N.E.  Two large creeks joined the river from the south and south-west.  The country was openly timbered; the Moreton Bay ash grew along the bergue of the river, where a species of Grewia seemed its inseparable companion.  The flooded-gum occupied the hollows and slopes of the river banks, which were covered with a high stiff grass to the water’s edge, and the stream was fringed with a thicket of drooping tea trees, which were comparatively small, and much bent by the force of floods, the probable frequency of which may account for the reduced size of the tree.  The ridges were covered with rusty Gum and narrow-leaved Ironbark.  An Erythrina and the Acacia of Expedition Range were plentiful.  The grass was rich and of various species.  The granite rock still prevailed.  A felspathic rock cropped out near the second creek, where I met with a dark rock, composed of felspar and horneblende (Diorite.) Our camp was pitched at the foot of a series of small conical hills, composed of porphyry.  A larger range to the southward of it was also porphyritic, very hard, as if penetrated by quartz, and containing small crystals of flesh-coloured felspar.  Sienite cropped out on the flats between these two ranges.  I commanded a most extensive view from the higher range.  High and singularly crenelated ranges were seen to the south-west; detached peaks and hills to the westward; short ranges and peaks to the north; and considerable ranges between north and north-east.  A river was observed to join the Burdekin from the ranges to the south-west.

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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 from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.