THE MURCHISON RIVER.
1857.
THE UPPER MURCHISON RIVER.
In the month of March, 1857, Mr. Surveyor F.T. Gregory, while engaged on the survey of the lower part of the Murchison, observed that the river came down in flood, though there had been no rain for several months near the coast, and taking advantage of such a favourable opportunity of extending the exploration of the country beyond the point at which previous explorers had been driven back for want of water and grass, he proceeded up the Murchison, accompanied by his assistant, Mr. S. Trigg, following the course of the river for 180 miles. For the last fifty miles the condition of the vegetation showed that there had been heavy rains which had caused the floods in the lower part of the river.
The following is an abstract of Mr. Gregory's report to the Surveyor-General, as published at the time in the Perth Gazette:--
We last week intimated that an exploratory trip had lately been made into the interior eastward of the Geraldine Mine. We have now the pleasure and satisfaction of laying before our readers some details of one of the most unassuming explorations, yet important in its results, which has ever been undertaken in this colony. In the latter end of March last, Mr. Assistant Surveyor F. Gregory and Mr. S. Trigg started from the Geraldine Mine with two horses and sixteen pounds of flour, to trace the Murchison to its source, and returned after thirteen days' absence. Mr. Gregory has made a short report of his journey to the Surveyor-General, from which we have been kindly furnished with the following extract:--
While at the Geraldine Mine I availed myself of the circumstance of the Murchison being in flood to ascend that river and complete the sketch of the unexamined portions, as also to gain any additional information that might facilitate the exploration of the country between this and the Gascoyne River. The fact that the natives describe a considerable tract of grassy country extending northward from the head of the Murchison, plentifully supplied with water, was an additional incentive to ascertain from whence the inundation came.
TROPICAL RAINY SEASON. GOOD PASTORAL COUNTRY.
Accompanied by Mr. S. Trigg, I proceeded up the river about 180 miles, at which point it ceased to run; we then ascended a hill in the vicinity of 600 or 700 feet elevation above the plain, which I have since found to be, beyond a doubt, Mount Murchison of Austin; unfortunately I was unable to procure a copy of his map or journal, and was thus prevented from laying out my route to the greatest advantage by pushing more to the northward and going over more new ground. As it is, the only information I have been able to gain, beyond completing the plan of the river, is that the principal fall of rain had been eastward of the 116th degree of longitude, and that the tract of country between the great South Bend and Mount Murchison, which proved barely capable of supporting Mr. Austin's small party of horses in November, 1854, is now yielding a pasture nearly equal to the average of the Champion Bay district, and in some parts most luxuriant, the grass having scarcely arrived at maturity was perfectly green; this remarkable change in the character of the country is, I am inclined to think, not entirely confined to this year in particular, but that from meteorological causes this district has not unfrequently the benefit of tropical rains falling during the months of January and February, although not always in sufficient quantity to cause the river to flow as low as the settled districts.
It has already been observed by many persons that during the summer months the prevailing sea breezes divide the northerly currents of vapour about 100 miles inland from the west coast, preventing the rain from falling throughout the same parallel of latitude.
As near the eastern limits of my route the Murchison throws off two branches nearly equal in magnitude to the main stream, I am induced to imagine that its extreme source does not lie more than sixty or seventy miles beyond that point, and had it not been that I did not feel justified in abstracting so large a portion of time from the regular surveys of this district, there is no doubt but that I could with every facility have completed the exploration of the country as far as the Gascoyne in two or three weeks.
On comparing the tracing of the Murchison, which I now enclose, with Mr. Austin's route, it will be observed that there is a difference of seventeen miles in latitude, and something more in longitude throughout the eastern portion, a discrepancy which I am at a loss to account for, as my dead-reckoning to both the outward and inward track agree well with my cross-bearings; my latitudes were, however, taken only with a pocket sextant with a treacle horizon, and might therefore not be implicitly relied on. I have, however, preferred plotting my route exactly as booked in the field, leaving the existing error to be cleared up at some future period.
From Mr. Trigg, who arrived on Wednesday by the Preston from Champion Bay, we have gathered the following additional particulars:--
The outward route was on the south bank of the river Murchison; the first sixty miles was but indifferent, but there were many spots of grass, sufficient to maintain travelling herds or flocks; afterwards the soil on the banks of the river improved and were continuously grassy, the general width being about half a mile. About latitude 26 degrees 50 minutes, longitude 116 degrees east, two large branches, almost if not quite equal to the main stream, join the Murchison from the eastward. About Mr. Austin's Mount Welcome the grass was found very luxuriant--from two to three feet high, and between there and Mount Murchison the country is described by Mr. Trigg to be very beautiful, and the soil superior to any he had previously seen in the colony, and equal to the best land in Victoria. Mount Murchison itself is an immense mass of quartz with granite round the base; this differs from Mr. Austin's description, but that gentleman does not appear to have ascended the hill. From the summit three high lands were observable, one an isolated peak fifty miles east, the others to the north and north-east apparently more distant; so far as could be seen, the country to the east and north-east appeared scrubby and indifferent. The return was on the north side of the Murchison; and here a large extent of good grassy land was found, not on the bank, but a mile and a half from the river, and reaching four or five miles in width to the base of some hills, and reaching westward to the large northerly bend of the river in longitude 115 degrees 30 minutes about forty miles from the Geraldine Mine; the good land in all cases was very flat, the soil a red loam, which when dry was very open; the whole country is singularly infested with white ants, of which every tree living or dead appeared to have its colony. Mr. Trigg regards the country around Mount Murchison as auriferous.
The striking difference there is between this account of the country on the Murchison and that given by Mr. Austin may be accounted for in several ways: first, Mr. Austin does not appear to have crossed, but skirted the country intervening between Mount Welcome and Mount Murchison, but he describes the land about the latter as improving, and found water; while it was the feed and water at Mount Welcome which, in all probability, saved his party from perishing. The land on the north side, spoken of so favourably by Mr. Trigg, was not seen by Mr. Austin, and also his party was so exhausted that it was out of his power to diverge from a direct line in order to examine the nature of the country on either side; whereas Messrs. Gregory and Trigg made such an examination whenever any favourable appearance presented itself, and thus determined the quantity of valuable land for a distance of six or seven miles on each side of the river, and have thus been the means of conferring on the Colony one of the greatest benefits it has received since the northern district was first opened by Mr. A. Gregory.