The Box And
Ironbark Forest Was Interrupted By Slight Rises Of Limestone Full Of
Corals; And By A Higher Hill Of Baked Sandstone, At The Foot Of Which A
Limestone Hill Was Covered With A Patch Of Vitex Scrub.
The strata of the
limestone seemed to dip to the southward.
The opposite banks of the river were ridgy, but openly timbered, and this
fine country, with its well grassed flats, and its open ridges, seemed to
extend very far on both sides. Messrs. Gilbert and Roper went to the top
of the hill, and saw ranges trending from west to north, with that
crenelated outline which I had before seen and mentioned: they
distinguished a large valley, and the smoke of several fires of the
natives along the range. A large lagoon was at the western foot of the
hill on which they were. 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. In the
thicket which covered the rock, I observed Pomaderris of Moreton Bay. In
decreasing our latitude, both Mr. Gilbert and myself were inclined to
think that, whenever a bird or a plant disappeared, it was owing to that
circumstance. In this, however, we were frequently mistaken: trees and
herbaceous plants disappeared with the change of soil, and the decrease
of moisture, and the birds kept to a certain vegetation: and, as soon as
we came to similar localities, familiar forms of plants and birds
re-appeared. Almost all the scrub-trees of the Condamine and Kent's
Lagoon were still to be seen at the Burdekin; and the isolated waters
near grassy flats were visited by swarms of little finches, which Mr.
Gilbert had observed at Port Essington, and which, in all probability,
belonged to the whole extent of country between that place and the region
of the tropics. This slight change of vegetation, and particularly of the
inland Flora, from south to north, is no doubt connected with the
uniformity of the soil and climate: and the immense difference which
exists between the eastern and western coast, has led men of science and
of observation, not without good reason, to infer that this continent was
originally divided into two large islands, or into an archipelago, which
have been united by their progressive, and, perhaps, still continued,
elevation. As an exception, however, to this remark, a very sudden change
of the Flora was observed, when we entered into the basin of the gulf of
Carpentaria, after leaving the eastern waters, although the Flora of the
north-west coast and Port Essington, was little different from that of
the gulf.
April 17.
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