Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 11, 2025
In travelling along the Burdekin, however, and the upper Lynd, they became very foot-sore; but still there was a sufficient change of good country to allow them to recover; I had been frequently inclined to throw the spare shoes away, but they had as often been retained, under the impression that they might be useful, when we came to the gulf, to barter with the natives for food, particularly for fish.
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.
Ridges and ranges were seen on both sides, at different distances. The Casuarina became more frequent along the banks of the river. It was rather remarkable that the Moreton Bay ash, which is so abundant along the Burdekin, was altogether wanting at the Clarke. Talc-schiste cropped out in one of the deep creeks.
Since leaving the Gulf country the explorers had subsisted on little else than horse and camel flesh, and were necessarily in rather a weak condition; but whilst they were toiling down the channel of the Upper Burdekin, suffering semi-starvation, they were actually travelling amongst the advance-guard of the pioneer squatters, and had they but thought of resting a day and looking around, their wants would have been relieved long before they sighted the gorge of the Burdekin, and their toilsome journey through that gorge have been prevented.
At 9 o'clock P.M. we felt again a strong warm breeze from north by east; but at 2 o'clock in the morning, a fine cool breeze, quite bracing and refreshing, blew from the westward. A flight of wild geese came down the creek, at about 2 o'clock in the morning, which made me suppose that the creek was an outlet of some large lagoons, like those in the valley of the Burdekin. Nov. 3.
It is one of the strongest and most consistent outbreaks in the north, and its volume and continuance show the strength of the source from which it emerges. The head of the Burdekin itself is amongst lava beds, wherein there are many similar springs; most of these take the form of permanent lagoons.
The clustered fig tree of the Burdekin, became again more frequent; but Sarcocephalus was the characteristic tree of the river. The Acacia of Expedition Range and of the upper Lynd, grew to a comparatively large size in the open forest. As the water-holes became larger, water-fowl became more plentiful; and Brown succeeded in shooting several wood-ducks and a Malacorhyncus membranaceus.
A large creek was seen, by Brown, to join the Burdekin from the north-east, at a short mile from our encampment. A baked sandstone and pudding-stone of a white colour projected into the river at the place, which not only exhibited the transition from one rock into the other, but it showed the action of igneous rocks on both, and gave a clue to the nature of the red rock I described yesterday.
Several other very interesting cucurbitaceous fruits, and large reeds, were observed among the rubbish which had accumulated round the trees during the flood. April 3. We travelled up the Burdekin, in a north-north-west direction, to latitude 20 degrees 31 minutes 20 seconds.
I was induced to think that this wind originated from the current of cold air flowing from the table-land of the Burdekin down to the gulf, as the easterly winds west of New England do, and as the westerly winds of Sydney during July and August, which are supposed to be equally connected with the table-land of New England and of Bathurst.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking