From The Above Table It Will Be Seen That The Greater Part Of The
Interior Of The Colony Seen By
Us is absolutely useless to man or beast.
It is possible that between the Lake Darlot goldfield and the 25th
Parallel of latitude isolated areas of auriferous country may be found,
though nothing that we saw proves this to be likely; and I base my
opinion only on the facts that quartz and ironstone are known to occur in
the vicinity of Lake Augusta and the Warburton Range. It is also possible
(and this I have already discussed) that a travelling route for stock may
be formed from South Australia along the 26th parallel as far as Mounts
Allott and Worsnop, and thence VIA Lake Wells and the Bonython Creek. to
the Erlistoun Creek and Lake Darlot.
Failing either the finding of gold, or the formation of a stock route
from oasis to oasis, I can see no use whatever to which this part of the
interior can be put.
North of the 25th parallel the country is absolutely useless until the
confines of the Kimberley district (about lat. 19 degrees) are reached.
That a stock route through the desert is quite impracticable we have
clearly demonstrated. Even supposing that there was any water supply,
there is no feed; nothing but spinifex grows in more than wee patches at
very long intervals. As any one who has followed me through this book can
see, our water supply was most precarious, depending as we did upon
rock-holes and native wells (which at any time may be found dry), and
these yielded an only just sufficient quantity to keep no more than nine
camels from dying for want of a drink - every well that we found, with the
exception of one or two, was drained and left empty.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 455 of 468
Words from 123606 to 123912
of 127189
