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.