Australia Twice Traversed - The Romance Of Exploration, Through Central South Australia, And Western Australia, From 1872 To 1876 By Ernest Giles
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There Was A Larger And
Semicircular Basin Still Farther Up The Gorge; This I Called The
Circus, But This Creek And Our Rock-Hole Ever After Went By The Name
Of The Circus.
In a few miles the next day I could see the termination
of the range.
In nine miles we crossed three creeks, then ascended a
hill north of us, and obtained at last a western view. It consisted
entirely of high, red sandhills with casuarinas and low mallee, which
formed the horizon at about ten miles. The long range that had brought
us so far to the west was at an end; it had fallen off slightly in
altitude towards its western extremity, and a deep bed of rolling
sandhill country, covered with desert vegetation, surrounded it on all
sides. Nearer to us, north-westerly, and stretching nearly to west,
lay the dry, irregular, and broken expanse of an ancient lake bed. On
riding over to it we found it very undefined, as patches of sandhills
occurred amongst low ridges of limestone, with bushes and a few low
trees all over the expanse. There were patches of dry, soda-like
particles, and the soil generally was a loose dust coloured earth.
Samphire bushes also grew in patches upon it, and some patches of our
arch-enemy, triodia. Great numbers of wallaby, a different kind from
the rock, were seen amongst the limestone rises; they had completely
honeycombed all we inspected. Water there was none, and if Noah's
deluge visited this place it could be conveniently stowed away, and
put out of sight in a quarter of an hour.
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