Sydney Morning Herald 19 August 1859

LINK TO A VISIT TO THE SOUTHERN GOLD FIELDS.

THE ROAD: BURROWA TO ADELONG.

FROM OUR SPECIAL GOLD-FIELDS REPORTER>

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The district to the eastward of Burrowa, in common with most of the table land lying at the western base of the great dividing range extending from the Murray to the northern extremity of New South Wales, teems with mineral wealth; in the vicinity of Annsvale rich specimens of copper, silver, and lead ore, have been obtained from the surface amongst the granite formations; and at the Wallah Wallah Creek, twenty-five miles to the N.E., a copper lode was worked prior to the discovery of gold, but as subsequently abandoned; ten miles further in the same direction, in the heart of a rugged broken country, amidst a mass of mountain ranges, the schists re-appear, and with them all the indications of a gold bearing district -- here the Fish River, or Narrawa, pursues its course to the Lachlan, over a bed of hard blue slate, intersected by innumerable quartz veins and reefs. The descents on either bank exhibit vast seams of quartz stretching to their summits, and there is nothing to distinguish this stream from the Meroo, or the Turon, excepting perhaps loftier mountains and a more general aspect of desolation. Now and then an adventurous digger on his way to the old established gold-fields has been induced to prospect it, and always obtained gold, sometimes in payable quantities; but as there are neither public-houses, nor stores, nor mates to be found in this wild region, however promising the prospect, he shouldered his swag, and made the best of his way over the ranges. All the bends of the Lachlan having their source in the dividing range are auriferous in the upper part of their course, and none of them, with the exception of the Abercrombie, have as yet contributed any portion of their treasures to the common weal. This district may, therefore, be classed as a virgin gold-field. Re-crossing the Burrowa, a journey of sixteen miles over richly grassed rolling plains and through clumps of forest, and along the margin of dry creeks, brings you to Galong. This far its extent is one of the most magnificent sheep runs in New South Wales. Wooded hills, crested with rounded granite boulders, subside into long swelling ridges like the heavings of an ocean; and these, in their turn, sink into broad alluvial plains, whose brilliant carpets of emerald green, dotted with groves of box and apple, and here and there a lone cherry tree, creep up the slopes until you are lost in the forest. The severity of the frosts, and the sharp, clear, bracing atmospere, denote the elevation of the district, which cannot be less than 2000 feet above the great rivers; but notwithstanding this, the lessee has succeeded in forming a handsome sheet of water at the extremity of his lawn by daming a creek which in all other parts of its course is now dry. This proves that water can be obtained in any part of the plateau by the same means. Three miles from the house, in a belt of limestone crossing the station, there is a vein of fine white and variegated marble. I also obtained a specimen of galena in the vicinity. Ten miles to the eastward lays Binalong embosomed in mountains. Here is a store, a court-house, and three or four public-houses, with a sprinkling of huts scattered over a wide broken surface. At seven miles distance a lode of pure galena has been discovered of considerable thickness. I have been informed that the townspeople have obtained it from thence in masses weighing one cwt. and upwards, and that they smelt it for their own use when required. Here is a chance for a shot tower, for lead works, for a white lead manufactory, &c., &c. Most of the township has become the property of a publican and storekeeper; and here, buried in the mountains, it progresses but slowly. Fifteen miles to the westward from Galong, and twenty from Binalong, traversing an undulating country similar to that already described, you arrive at Cunningham's Plains. Here a wide expanse of gentle slopes and swelling hills are spread out for miles before you -- the rich velvet sward devoid of tree or shrub; but one element of scenic beauty is wanting to create a landscape of surpassing loveliness, and that is -- water. A dry creek meanders at the base of the long slopes, and now and then a little grove of box, or apple, fringed with dwarf honeysuckle, at some deviation in its course, seems as if placed there by a lover of the picturesque; but here Art might sit at the feet of nature, and learn how to create another Eden. The fertility of the soil is equal to the natural beauties of the situation -- a deep red brown loam covering the entire district. By clearing the shingle to the depth of four or five feet, water can be procured in any part of the creek, where an under current, supplied by numerous springs, steals along its course. Good wells can also be found by sinking to the depth of from fifteen to twenty feet. I observed one near a new hotel, now building, at the lower township of Murrimboolla, which, sunk on the brow of a hill, at a depth of thirty feet, struck a spring that rose ten feet. This district has been long in pastoral occupation, and a Mr. Macansh is the present lessee. At each extremity of the plain a township has been recently laid out upon the banks of the creek, -- that to the eastward is named Cunningar; that to the westward Murrimboolla, a native name, signifying two canoes. Of the former the first sod is not yet turned; the latter contains one public-house, complete, two others building, a tent, a hut, and a blacksmith's shed. The survey of this locality has just been ably completed by Mr. Woolridge, and the space between the rival cities, about four miles, has been cut up into eighty farms, extending over the plains; from forty to fifty of these are open downs, treeless. At a recent Government land sale, held at Binalong Courthouse, several town lots at Cunningar, and thirty- four of the choicest farms surrounding the destined city, were offered for public competition, when they were all sold; but the sale was made to one purchaser -- to the lessee of the run, who swallowed up the whole, and is said to be still unsated. After a few more such purchases he may climb to the top of one of his own hills, and there, enthroned upon a granite boulder, look round upon the wilderness he has perpetuated, and exclaim with Robinson Crusoe:

I am monarch of all I survey, My right there is none to dispute.

If it was really intended to attach a population to this lovely and fertile region, how did it occur that the choicest land was selected for the first sale in one compact block, with nominal subdivisions? Why were the farms to be offered for sale not selected at long intervals, scattered over the plains, and unconnected with each other, so as to prevent the result that has taken place? If it was intended to give one purchaser an opportunity of becoming the possessor of the choicest block of land in this superb district, why put the country to the expense of a subdivisional survey, or of laying out a township. There was nothing unfair or underhand in the purchase of this land by the buyer. It was all straightforward and aboveboard; but when it is taken into account that this fertile district connects the capital of all the Australias with the head of an internal navigation, extending thousands of miles through the interior, and that although that interior is our own, we will have to compete for its rising trade with Melbourne and Adelaide, it will be conceded that no portion of our territory is of more importance to the general interests of New South Wales, and that every effort should be made to turn the tide of population in this direction, and, further, that any Government would be justified in availing itself of those discretionary powers vested in it to promote such an object. We have hitherto been endeavouring to build a house by commencing at the garret-to plant a nation without a yeomanry -- and what have we produced. Let any man visit the clusters of pothouses in the interior, miscalled towns and villages, and then, and not till then, will he be able to answer the question. Three mighty navigable streams, receiving countless tributaries, all welling from the great dividing range, have been so distributed as to command the future commerce of the furthest interior of this favoured colony: one flows from our northern limits, another intersects the middle districts, and the third forms our southern boundary. For hundreds of miles their course is through plains verdant with the most luxuriant vegetation; these are flanked with swelling hills and long lines of ranges, clothed with rich grasses and stately forests ; and rising in the rear of all a wide expanse of table-land stretches to the eastward, broken by huge masses of granite, and other igneous products, upheaved at irregular elevations, trending to the north-west, while here and there a lofty peak lifts its head in solitary grandeur above the lower hills, forming a landmark in the wilderness; one vast forest waves over all this dreary waste, descending to the gloomy depths of the lowest gorge, and climbing to the glistening crest of the highest peak. At the base of these elevations fissures widen into deep ravines, and frightful chasms, through which, during the rainy seasons, the waters of the plateau, collected by a thousand rills, rush headlong to the lower plains, when all is verdant and redolent of life and beauty. But when the dry season sets in the fierce summer heat licks up every particle of moisture, and unless under the shadow of some overhanging rock, in the depths of a ravine, you may seek to quench your burning thirst in vain. All around is one arid desert; the grasses are withered, and dried up; the feathered tribe have flown to more hospitable regions; and on the drooping forest, and the parched and fissured earth, is everywhere written -- thirst, thirst, thirst. At long intervals following the windings of these great highways of nature the hut of the pioneer of the wilderness, the herdsman, may be seen either nestling in the foliage of the forest, or crowning the summit of a sheltered knoll, its base bathed by the babbling waters of some bill-born streamlet, and his flocks or herds depasturing on the distant slopes. The natural entrepôt for the commerce of this immense district is the nearest port to Lake Alexandrina, but the head of the navigation is in the neighbour-hood of Wagga Wagga, on the central stream, about three hundred miles distant from Sydney via Goulburn, Burrowa, and Murrimboolla. The country for all that distance, with the exception of a few miles, is fertile and suited for cereal agriculture, being capable of sustaining a population of two or three millions, as, after passing through the dividing range, the land is of the best quality, either north or south, for at least 108 miles. If the whole available resources and energies of New South Wales are directed to the extension of the Southern railroad, and its connection with, the head of our internal navigation, we will open up a country along its line capable of supplying bread stuffs sufficient for the consumption of our whole population-we will secure the commerce of the richest pastoral country we now possess, to which the squatters are removing their flocks and herds daily, and we will preserve what territory now remains to us. But if, on the contrary, we fritter away our resources, and our time, in a gradual extension north, south, and west, the rival capitals, Adelaide and Melbourne, will share the commerce of our interior between them; and before many years have elapsed by another partition, or perhaps an annexation, we may lose the fairest portion of New South Wales, and be informed that the Blue Mountains are our natural boundary. If we cannot make a road across them, it will be said with justice. The northern districts that we now stand possessed of will require but good roads for wheeled conveyances to the nearest ports for the next half century, but the advancement, the prosperity of New South Wales, depends upon her southern railroad, and her internal navigation. The day has arrived when those who have her interest at heart must look beyond mere operations in ten, sugar, and rum, or an occasional effort to create a monopoly in the market of foreign flour. It has been objected that our rivers are not navigable excepting at irregular seasons, but we have yet to learn how to build river boats of heavy burthen and light draught. On the Illinois several bars are passed over by boats of 200 tons burthen where there is not twenty inches of water when the river is low. Steamers capable of carrying a deck load of 300 bales of cotton have plied up and down the Trinity River, in Texas, for years, and in many parts of this stream the depth of water does not exceed twenty inches; between Houston and Austin, in the same State, numerous high pressure boats ply on the Colorado, carrying deck loads of four or five hundred bales besides other cargo, and in a trip of 180 miles pass over many shingly bars where at certain seasons of long duration the depth of water is less than two feet-the draught of the Sultana, one of the floating palaces on the Missisippi, with a full cargo on board, did not exceed four feet six inches, her saloon was 340 feet long, and she has carried 250 passengers and 2500 bales of cotton, besides miscellaneous cargo. The lines of these boats can be procured; there are men in Australia who can build them; and if our timber is too heavy for their construction, there would be no difficulty in obtaining iron suitable for the purpose. In fact, river vessels of 200 tons burthen can be built with a draught, when the cargo is all on board, not to exceed eighteen inches. The little boat now at Wagga Wagga, I am informed -- I do not know how correctly-draws seven feet. Men who are conversant with both streams have declared that the Murrumbidgee is incomparably a finer river than the Upper Ohio, in the course of which many rapids and shoals occur, having a less depth of water than two feet between Cincinnatti and Pitsburgh. The Murray is said also to be infinitely superior to the Missouri with its boiling current, shallows, snags, and shifting sand banks. Amongst the boats trading on this river may be named the St.Louis, 330 feet in length, carrying a cargo of 2500 bales, with a draught of three feet six inches; the Missouri, length 300 feet, cargo 3000 bales, with a draught of three feet five inches; and the little clipper Petona, length 280 feet, cargo 1800 bales, draught three feet, with a speed of eighteen knots an hour against stream. All these boats carry an additional burthen of from forty to fifty tons of firewood and miscellaneous cargo, together with a host of passengers, and the splendour of their accommodations are not surpassed by any class of vessels afloat. The day is not far distant when it will be no longer urged against New South Wales that she has no navigable rivers. The streams are there rolling on through unpeopled solitudes towards the ocean, but where is the spirit and enterprise necessary to turn them to account ! The road from Burrowa to Murrumboolla, thirty odd miles, is like a bowling green, and from thence to Wagga Wagga it is equally unexceptionable; a branch road could also be constructed to Gundagai from Murrimboolla, over a splendid series of declining plains, avoiding the frightful ranges, swamps, and mud holes in the vicinity of Jugiong. But of that district I will say more in my next, as we will return to Galong, and start from thence to Gundagai and the Adelong.