The Pounding of Rockhampton the Archer Brothers
The Pounding of Rockhampton and The Archer Brothers. BY WILLIAM CLARK. {Mead at a Meeting of the Historical Society of Queensland, on October 12'th, 1917.) Of all the great maritime ports of entry in north-eastern Australia, the Port of Rockhampton is by far the most important, possessing a wonderful endowment of back country, rich in sources of mineral wealth and in fertile soil, its natural pasturage even surpassing the artifical cultured conditions of the meadow lands of older countries. On the fine black soil downs of Springsure and CuJlin-la- ringo, Fernlees and the Minerva country, the growth of the tussock grass, sheep fescues, wild carrot, wild eschalots, wild lucerne, wild melons and innumerable flowering herbs attest the truth of the statement here made. This immense tract of country is traversed and drained by no less than seven watersheds, forming the course of the Dawson*, Nogoa, Comet, Claude, Barcoof, Nive arid Thompson^ Rivers. Its great westerly range system, known as the Great Divide, turns its easterly waters into the Mackenzie**, which, with its affluent, the Isaacf f river, rolls down to the " Lordly Fitzroy," with its ocean gates at Keppel Bay, while the waters flowing from the Great * Discovered by Leichhardt, 5th November, 1844, and naiaed by him after R. B. Dawson, of Black River, afterwards of Casino. t Discovered by Sir Thomas Mitchell, 13th September, 1845, and named the " Victoria "—" the future highway to the Indian- Ocisan." In August, 1847, E. B. Kennedy proved it to be the Cooper's Creek of Sttirt. Sabisequentiy called the Bareoo.
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