CURIOUS AUSTRALIAN LAKES.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLIX, Issue 1514, 9 November 1912, Page 5 (Supplement)

CURIOUS AUSTRALIAN LAKES.

RIVERS LOST IN THE DESERT.

nekc;roi;ni> forces play strange pranks at times. Australia is happily free from earthquakes, but one never knows when the eruptive days of years gone by may recur. Apropos of this, a strange occurence is rejjorted from Curdie's river, Victoria. Recently all the water became quite white, with froth upon it, which afterwards turned to green slime. Large numbers of fish in the stream died. The water gave out a peculiar odour, and cattle refused to drink it. It. was supposed to bo the result of a volcanic disturbance in Lako Purrumbete, in the vicinity of Mount Leura. There is an extinct volcano in this neighbourhood. It is said that divers were ,-ent down into the lake on a previous occasion to investigate, but the water was so hot that they could not stay in it. After this last disturbance the water in the river became clearer than it had been for some time. The slime collected into patches, which clung to the soil and stones on the banks. It has been noticed for a considerable time, that in making excavations into Mount Leura for the purpose of obtaining scoria for ballasting footpaths, the deeper the excavation the greater the heat of the material. "Swagmen ' frequently camp in such places during the winter.

Iu the country immediately north of Spencer's Gulf, is an extensive area which may bo called the Lake District of Australia. It is nearly one thousand miles in length from south-east to north-west. First of all there is Lake Toirens, more than one hundred miles long, but not very wide. Luke Eyre, farther north, is much larger. To the west of the extensive Lake Gardner, and to the east of Lake Eyro are Lakes Blanche, Gregory, and several others. All these lakes (which, by the live, are salt), arc subject to great, fluctuations in size, grassy plains being found in some years where extensive sheets of water at other times cover tho country. Australia, abounds in basins of inland water, which, however, are mostly saline, and are very seldom flooded all the year round. They depend for their supplies mainly on the rainy monsoons, possess no regular influence or even surface springs, and lie mostly in the centre of waterless, stony deserts.

is ear the centre of Australia is the Finko River, which rises on the Tropic 'of Capricorn, in the McDonald Ranges, and Mowing southward receives many small tributaries. After passing Charlotte Waters station on the Overland Telegraph line it becomes lost in the desert. Farther north and east, are numerous other streams, which, after a short course, disappear in the sand. All these watercourses are subject at intervals to sudden and violent Hoods. The flood-times are followed by long periods of drought, during which many streams and lakes disappear altogether, and never come back to life again. Next flood-time Providence invents new rivers in new localities. On the New South Wales tableland, south of Goulburn, at an elevation of over two thousand feet above the sea, is siturtted Lake George. In 1824 it was twenty miles long and eight miles wide, enclosed by steep, thickly-wooded hills. It gradually diminished ' in size until about. 1837 it became quite dry, and was converted into a grassy plain. After a few years it

slowly filled again, till in 1865 it was seventeen feet deep. • Two years later it I was only two feet deep, but . in 1876 it was again twenty miles long and about twenty feet deep. The old watermarks show "that it has sometimes reached three feet, higher than that. A Peculiar Arm of The Sea. Coorong Lake, in South Australia, is a most peculiar arm of the sea. It has its opening in the south-eastern part of Lake Alexandria, not far from the mouth of the Murray River, and runs parallel with the coast "in a south-easterly direction for about twenty-five miles. The greatest width of the sheet of water thus caused is a little less than two miles. For tho whole distance there is only a- narrow strip of sand-hills lying.between this lake and the sea. It is supposed that this strange geographical feature may have been a sand-bank, which has been raised from under the sea by an upheavel, while the low land intervening between it and the former const is still covered by water. The Coorong Lake lies between the coast hills which border the edges of the sea, | and is a continuation of what is known as the Stone Hut Range. Tho banks are mere level Hats with black slimy mud, limestone, and salt-water shells. Iho water is fresh at times, but generally brackish, and is very shallow, with one or two creeks flowing into it. There are, ( however few outlets, and evaporation goes on rapidly. Considerable quantities of , a bright inflammable substance, resembling resin in appearance, which burns slowly with a clear llame and gives out a bituminous smell, have been found. For some hundreds of miles to the north of the Lako District of Australia, there is a limestone formation studded with what are commonly called "Mound Lakes." These mounds aro usually about 50 feet high, and ornamented on the summit with clumps of tall trees and buJlrushcs. They are natural artesian wells; the water, forced up from below, gushes out over the top to the level ground, where it forms small water channels. The majority of these mounds have little lakes on their summits. Some of the lakes are perfectly fresh and good, but others are more or less saline, and aro impregnated with various minerals, though seldom to such an extent as to render the water unfit for animals. It is the mineral or earthy deposits, brought up by tho springs which have gradually built up the conical mounds from tho summits of which they issue, just as volcanic cones have been built up by the ejections from the earth's interior. They are, in fact, water volcanoes, and they afford good proof of large subterranean reservoirs.