The Wolf Rises On The Opposite Slope Of The Watershed To Christmas Creek
And The Mary River, And Floods Twice Or Thrice A Year.
Below its junction
with the Sturt the combined creek takes on itself the character of the
Wolf, and at the point of confluence the Sturt may be said to end.
Seeing
how seldom the Sturt runs its entire length and how small its channel is
at this point, smaller than that of the Wolf, I think that it is to the
latter that the lakes (Gregory's "Salt Sea") chiefly owe their existence.
However that may be, the combined waters fill but an insignificant
channel and one can hardly credit that this creek has a length of nearly
three hundred miles.
On nearing the lakes the creek assumes so dismal an appearance, and so
funereal is the aspect of the dead scrub and dark tops of the "boree" (a
kind of mulga), that one wonders that Gregory did not choose the name of
"Dead" instead of merely "Salt Sea." A curious point about this lower
part of the creek is, that stretches of fresh and salt water alternate.
The stream, as we saw it, was only just running in the lower reaches; in
places it ran under the sandy bed, and in this part the salt pools
occurred. First we passed a stretch of clear, brackish water, then a
nearly dry reach of sand, then a trickle of fresh water lasting for a
hundred yards or so; this would again disappear, and be seen lower down
as another salt pool.
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