MYSTERY OF LAKE EYRE.

Cromwell Argus, Volume LXIII, Issue 3250, 13 February 1933, Page 2

MYSTERY OF LAKE EYRE.

The area of Lake Eyre is 10,000 square miles, constituting the largest space of lake in Australia. But for long periods water cannot be seen from its shores, and at times the muddy bed is draped with a mantle of glistening salt, over which mirages are intensified. The interior of the lake has been seen only from the air. All is known about its size and boundaries, and the rivers which feed it, but so far none can say definitely whether it holds water all the year round and what life, if any, exists in the water. There are other problems, too, which baffle solution and serve to render Lake Eyre a most interesting problem. During droughts aviators have flown over the lake and many photographs have been taken and sketches and measurements useful in fixing the size of the lake and defining its boundaries. But neither aerial survey nor ground party provide the solution of the greatest mystery of Lake Eyre—the reason for the remarkable disappearance of water which is carried into it in immense volume during times of flood. No outlet is known. In years of rain seven contributory rivers, radiating from the lake like giant feelers, drain as much as half a million square miles of country, extending far into Queensland and the Northern Territory. For the greater part of the year, and sometimes for years, these rivers are dry and stony, with small pools at intervals of many miles. In rainy seasons, however, the transformation is remarkable. Then the rivers are not sufficiently wide to hold the waters. One of the largest rivers emptying into the north of the lake, has been known to exceed twenty miles in width, as occurred in the floods some time ago; while a great volume of water is brought down from Queensland by the Cooper, the Alberga and the Diamantina, and at such times Lake Eyre attains to the dimensions of an inland sea, extending for 100 miles or more in length and from 40 to 60 miles in width. A few months after the rivers have ceased to flow no water is visible from the shore. What a short time before was a vast area of flood water is now a sun-baked expanse of mud and crystals of magnesia and salt; thousands of water birds which reaped a harvest from fresh water have disappeared, the muddy shores are lifeless and deserted. The waters literally vanish. The absence of knowledge concerning the outlet to Lake Eyre has led to the conclusion that subterranean channels are continually drawing off the water, and that evaporation, which is intensified in this sun-baked region, aids in reducing the lake to the inconspicuous sheet usually seen by visitors to Central Australia passing on the interior-bound train.