TOWRANG HILL.
At a few miles from Goulburn the road passes by the foot of Towrang, a hill whose summit I had formerly cleared of timber, leaving only one tree. I thus obtained an uninterrupted view of the distant horizon, and found the hill very useful afterwards in extending our survey from Jellore into the higher country around Lake George. This hill consists chiefly of quartz rock. At its base the new line leaves the original cart track which here crossed the Wollondilly twice. I now found an intermediate road in use between the old track and my half-formed road which was still inaccessible at this point for want of a small bridge over Towrang Creek.
THE WOLLONDILLY.
The Wollondilly pursues its course to the left, passing under the southern extremity of Cockbundoon range, which extends about thirty miles in a straight line from north to south, and consists of sandstone dipping westward. Near the Wollondilly and a few miles from Towrang a quarry of crystalline variegated marble has been recently wrought to a considerable extent, and chimney-pieces, tables, etc. now ornament most good houses at Sydney. This rock occurs in blocks over greenstone, and has hitherto been found only in that spot.
WILD COUNTRY THROUGH WHICH IT FLOWS.
The channel of the Wollondilly continues open and accessible for a few miles lower down than this, but after it is joined by the Uringalla near Arthursleigh it sinks immediately into a deep ravine and is no longer accessible as above, the country to the westward of it being exceedingly wild and broken. The scene it presented when I stood on the pic of Jellore in 1828 and commenced a general survey of this colony was of the most discouraging description.* A flat horizon to a surface cracked and hollowed out into the wildest ravines, deep and inaccessible; their sides, consisting of perpendicular rocky cliffs, afforded but little reason to suppose that it could be surveyed and divided as proposed into counties, hundreds, and parishes; and still less was it likely ever to be inhabited, even if such a work could be accomplished. Nevertheless it was necessary in the performance of my duties that these rivers should be traced, and where the surveyor pronounced them inaccessible to the chain, I clambered over rocks and measured from cliff to cliff with the pocket sextant. Thus had I wandered on foot by the murmuring Wollondilly, sometimes passing the night in its deep dark bed with no other companions than a robber and a savage. I could now look back with some satisfaction on these labours in that barren field. I had encompassed those wild recesses; the desired division of the rocky wastes they enclosed had really been made; and if no other practical benefit was derived we had at least been enabled to open ways across them to better regions beyond.
(*Footnote. My predecessor in office had declared the operation to be impracticable in such a country; but to this general survey I was pledged on accepting my appointment in London. Two other commissioners for the division of the territory were each receiving a guinea a day, but yet could do nothing until this survey was accomplished; and I therefore set about the work with the resolution necessary for the performance of what was deemed almost impossible. Universal wood, impassable ravines, a total absence of artificial objects, and the consequent necessity for clearing summits as stations for the theodolite were great impediments; but I made the most of each station when it had once been cleared by taking an exact panoramic view with the theodolite of the nameless features it commanded. The accompanying facsimile of a page of my field book includes the view between north and north-west, taken for the above purpose from the summit of Jellore, and extends over the ravines of the Nattai to the crest of the Blue Mountains. Plate 38.)
PLATE 38: GENERAL VIEW OF THE SANDSTONE DISTRICTS, FROM THE SUMMIT OF JELLORE.
Left to right: Bonnum Pic, Gnowogang, Valley of Cox River, King's Tableland, King George's Mount, Mount Hay, Tomah.
On Zinc by Major Mitchell (a Page of his Field Book). Day and Haghe Lithographers to the Queen.
London, Published by T. and W. Boone.