FOLLOWING THE WATER ENVIRONMENTAL HISTORY AND THE HYDROLOGICAL CYCLE IN COLONIAL GIPPSLAND, AUSTRALIA, 1838–1900 FOLLOWING THE WATER ENVIRONMENTAL HISTORY AND THE HYDROLOGICAL CYCLE IN COLONIAL GIPPSLAND, AUSTRALIA, 1838–1900 KYLIE CARMAN-BROWN In memory of Mum and Dad Published by ANU Press The Australian National University Acton ACT 2601, Australia Email: [email protected] Available to download for free at press.anu.edu.au ISBN (print): 9781760462840 ISBN (online): 9781760462857 WorldCat (print): 1122806616 WorldCat (online): 1122806567 DOI: 10.22459/FW.2019 This title is published under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial- NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0). The full licence terms are available at creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/legalcode Cover design and layout by ANU Press This edition © 2019 ANU Press Contents List of maps, figures and tables . ix Acknowledgements . xiii Maps. .. xv 1 . Introduction . 1 2 . Making the circle round: Perceptions of hydrology through time . 21 3 . The earth’s thoughtful lords? Nineteenth-century views of water and nature . 39 4 . ‘Notwithstanding the inclemency of the weather’: The role of precipitation in the catchment . 85 5 . ‘Fair streams were palsied in their onward course’: The desirability of flowing waters . 127 6 . ‘A useless weight of water’: Responding to stagnancy, mud and morasses . .. 167 7 . Between ‘the water famine and the fire demon’: Drying up the catchment . 213 8 . Mirror, mirror? The reflective catchment . 255 Bibliography . 263 Index . 291 List of maps, figures and tables Maps Map 1: Gippsland Lakes catchment area . xv Map 2: East Gippsland locations . xvi Map 3: West Gippsland locations . .xvii Map 4: Topography of central Gippsland . xviii Map 5: Squatting runs, 1842 . xix Map 6: Squatting runs, 1857 . xx Map 7: Landmarks of early Sale . xxi Map 8: Ecological vegetation classes, 1750 . xxii Map 9: Ecological vegetation classes, 2005 . xxiii Map 10: Punt Lane and Swing Bridge . xxiv Figures Figure 1 1:. Catchment signage between Cann River and Lakes Entrance . 3 Figure 1 .2: ‘Tarrago Creek’, near Neerim, Latrobe River catchment, Thomas Henry Armstrong Bishop, c . 1901 . 3 Figure 1 .3: Nicholas Caire’s image of the Reeves River, actually part of the Lakes, c . 1900. 4 Figure 1 4:. Cleared hillsides surrounding Walhalla, Thomas Henry Armstrong Bishop, c . 1901 . .. 8 Figure 1 .5: Flora Gregson’s painting of wildflowers from around Lakes Entrance, c . 1870 . 10 Figure 2 1:. Leonardo da Vinci’s view of the hydrological cycle . 28 ix Following THE Water Figure 2 .2: Schematic representation of the hydrological cycle . .. 33 Figure 3 1:. Church at Sth Yinnar . A typical example of the small community-built churches that dotted the landscape. 44 Figure 3 .2: Tambo Valley, illustrating the gentle slopes that were so sought after . 44 Figure 3 .3: A bark hut in the Neerim area, Archibald J . Campbell, 1877 . 53 Figure 3 4:. An example of trained hydrology, channels constructed in Walhalla . 56 Figure 3 .5: The now thickly overgrown Mosquito Creek in the Moe Drainage Scheme . 63 Figure 3 6:. A fragment of grassy woodland, photographed along the road between Glengarry and Cowarr . 68 Figure 3 7:. Depictions of Maffra from 1882 . These montage scenes showing progress were common . 69 Figure 3 .8: Eugene von Guerard’s painting of Angus McMillan’s Bushy Park, 1861, depicting a small wetland in the foreground with cattle drinking . 71 Figure 3 9:. Gregory’s Cottage, Cooper’s Creek, Walhalla Road, c . 1885 . 74 Figure 3 10:. The A1 Mine at Gaffney’s Creek, Thomas Henry Armstrong Bishop, c . 1901 . 76 Figure 3 11:. New Public Hall, Sale, FA Sleap engraver, 1879 . 76 Figure 4 .3: Flood debris piled up against the railway bridge to Walhalla across the Thomson River, 2008 . .. 105 Figure 4 4:. Flats at the mouth of the Latrobe River, Thomas Henry Armstrong Bishop, n d. (c . 1894–1909). 105 Figure 4 .5: A Gipps Land track after rain, The Australasian Sketcher with Pen and Pencil, 1882 . 106. Figure 4 6:. Boggy Creek, J Williamson engraver, 1865 . 109 Figure 4 7:. The floodplain between the Swing Bridge and Longford, November 2011 . .. 115 Figure 5 .3: Detail of Acacia mearnsii . 141 Figure 5 4:. Livingstone Creek, below Omeo, illustrating the steepness of banks . 144 Figure 5 .5: Nicholas Caire’s image of the Dargo River, n d. 145 x List OF maps, figures and tables Figure 5 6:. A bend in the Avon River . 145 Figure 5 7:. Crossing place at Wombat Creek, Thomas Henry Armstrong Bishop, n d. Buckley recorded a log crossing on 25 February 1849 . 146 Figure 5 .8: The Sale Swing Bridge, showing the central piers around which the deck pivots . .. 153 Figure 5 9:. Looking upstream from the Sale Swing Bridge at the new, and substantially higher, Latrobe River bridge. .. 153 Figure 5 10:. Oriental claims area, near Omeo . 155 Figure 5 11:. Bank erosion on the Avon River, 1872 . 157 Figure 5 12:. Washaway at bridge over Avon River near Bushy Park, Victorian Railways, 1893 . 157 Figure 5 13:. Flora Gregson’s watercolour of the Lady of the Lake trying to pull a stranded vessel off the bar at Lakes Entrance, 1878 . .. 159 Figure 5 14:. The permanent entrance from Jemmy’s Point . .. 163 Figure 6 1:. Sale Common, now a wildlife refuge . 174 Figure 6 .2: Shooting swans by moonlight, first published in The Australasian Sketcher with Pen and Pencil, 22 May 1880 . 176 Figure 6 .3: Macalister Swamp, on the outskirts of Maffra . .. 177 Figure 6 4:. A part of MacLeod’s Morass, Bairnsdale . The low featureless expanse of reeds made perfect hiding grounds, but would exacerbate the troubles of the genuinely lost . 183 Figure 6 .5: ‘Cleared’ land near Mirboo, Thomas Henry Armstrong Bishop, n d. (c . 1894 – c . 1909) . 184 Figure 6 6:. Selections in the parishes of Warragul, Moe, Yarragon and Narracan in 1883 . Moe Swamp is not delineated except on the south by the main road. 200 Figure 6 7:. Parish map of Yarragon, 1908 . 201 Figure 6 .8: The former Moe Swamp, now the Moe Flats . 203 Figure 6 9:. Township of Warragul, by Nicholas Caire, 1886 . 209 Figure 7 1:. AW Howitt’s hop kiln, Frederick Cornell, 1872 . Hops were dried with the use of specially constructed hop kilns . 222 Figure 7 .2: Bed of the Tambo River, Thomas Henry Armstrong Bishop, n d. 229 xi Following THE Water Figure 7 .3: The homestead saved, An incident of the Great Gippsland Fire of 1898, JA Turner, published 1908 . 234 Figure 7 4:. Fire near Holey Plains State Park, close to Traralgon in the Latrobe Valley, July 2006. 235 Figure 7 .5: Cowarr Butter Factory . 239 Figure 7 6:. Senescent pine windbreak, Churchill area, November 2011 . 244 Figure 7 7:. Carl Walter’s image of a prospector on Freestone Creek, 1867 . 252 Figure 8 1:. Swans feeding at dusk, Lakes Entrance, November 2011 . 261 Tables Table 4 1:. Mean monthly and annual rainfall in mm across measuring stations in the GLC . 91 Table 4 .2: Extracted from Blackie’s Literary and Commercial Almanac, 1848 . 99 Table 5 1:. Historic uses of rivers in Europe. 130 Table 5 .2: Table of water supply activities . 137 xii Acknowledgements This book is based on my PhD thesis. A thesis, and then turning that thesis into a book, is a lengthy and collaborative process, and many people have assisted me along me the way. My supervisory panel, John Dargavel, Nicholas Brown, Barry Higman and Sara Beavis, deserve the academic version of a sainthood for getting me through when my life was falling apart. The strengths of this work reflect their patient and loving guidance, and the errors reflect my inability to translate their good advice into words on a page. The university was also kind enough to grant me many extensions so that I could go home to Perth to be with my dying mother, and then support my father as he adjusted to life without Mum. Sadly, neither of them lived long enough to know I had passed. I would also like to thank Tom Griffiths and Libby Robin who accepted my application to participate in the 2006 Environmental History Postgraduate Workshop, as well as all the staff at the Fenner School and the School of History who were always willing to help. The College of Arts and Social Sciences were kind enough to award me their publishing prize, a true boon. I thank Geoff Hunt and Morgan Burgess for their assistance in editing the revised manuscript and also Christine Huber for her kindness and additional support during the publication process. ANU Press was a dream to work with and I thank Emily Hazlewood and her team for putting together a beautiful-looking book. I’m grateful to Meredith Fletcher for her assistance in navigating the collection at the Centre for Gippsland Studies. Theses cannot get written without all the behind-the-scenes librarians, database builders, indexers and stack retrievers at all the libraries I consulted, and I thank them for their anonymous work. xiii Following THE Water Nor can theses get written without a substantial support crew in the rest of life. Seven deaths in five years would test anyone, and it is a testament to the cheering, cajoling and hornswoggling abilities of my support crew that I have managed to complete this and finally get published! I am totally in your karmic debt. You know who you are. xiv Maps Map 1: Gippsland Lakes catchment area. Source: State of Victoria, Department of Natural Resources and Environment . xv Following THE Water Map 2: East Gippsland locations. Source: State of Victoria, Department of Sustainability and Environment .