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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It Is Composed Of A Pink And
Whitish-Coloured Granite, With Quantities Of Calcareous Stone Near Its
Base, And It Appears To Have Been Formed By The Action Of Submarine
Volcanic Force.
No particular hills and no watercourses could be seen
in any northerly direction.
The Gascoyne River could be traced by its
valley trend for twenty-five or thirty miles eastwards, and it is most
probable that it does not exist at all at fifty miles from where we
crossed it. The elevation of this mountain was found to be 3400 feet
above sea level, and 1800 feet above the surrounding country. The
latitude of this feature is 24 degrees 44', and its longitude 118
degrees 2', it lying nearly north of Mount Churchman, and distant 330
miles from it. There were no signs of water anywhere, nor could any
places to hold it be seen. It was very difficult to get a camel
caravan over such a country. The night we encamped here was the
coolest of the season; the thermometer on the morning of the 2nd
indicated 48 degrees. On the stony hills we occasionally saw stunted
specimens of the scented commercial sandal-wood and native
orange-trees. Leaving the foot of this mountain with pleasure, we went
away as north-easterly as we could, towards a line of hills with a gap
or pass in that direction. We found a small watercourse trending
easterly, and in it I discovered a pool of clear rain-water, all among
stones. We encamped, although it was a terribly rough place. Arriving
at, and departing from, Mount Labouchere has made some of the camels
not only very tender-footed, but in consequence of the stony layers
lying so up-edged, has cut some of them so badly that the caravan
might be tracked by a streak of blood on the stones over which we have
passed. This was not so much from the mere stones, but from the camels
getting their feet wedged into clefts and dragging them forcibly out.
Some were so fortunate as to escape without a scratch. We made very
little distance to-day, as our camp is not more than five miles from
the summit of the mountain, which bore south 61 degrees west from us.
We rested at this little pond for a day, leaving it again upon the
4th.
Following the watercourse we were encamped upon, it took us through a
pass, among the rough hills lying north-easterly. So soon as we
cleared the pass, the creek turned northerly, and ran away over a fine
piece of grassy plain, which was a kind of valley, between two lines
of hills running east and west, the valley being of some width. The
timber of the creek fell off here, and the watercourse seemed to
exhaust itself upon the valley in a westerly direction, but split into
two or three channels before ending, if, indeed, it does end here,
which I doubt, as I believe this valley and creek, form the head of
the Lyons River, as no doubt the channel forms again and continues its
course to the west.
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