234 THE OTWA Y FOREST. [Aug. 



THE OTWAY FOREST. 



" VAGtABOND," writing in the Australasian, descants on the 

 beauties of this great forest of the Antipodes. The Victorian 

 coast, from the mouth of the Gellibrand river westward of Cape 

 Otway to Lome on the east, was first traversed by tlie crew of the 

 Joanna in 1843, v/ho had been shipwrecked at Moonlight Head. 

 On their way to Geelong they skirted forests of enormous timber. 

 This was six years after Messrs. Gellibrand and Hesse were lost 

 here. In 1851, Messrs. Wathen and Learmonth attempted to 

 pierce the country, and " fought their way for two days inch by inch 

 through the labyrinth of fallen trees without a mouthful of food for 

 their horses." Mr. Wathen's report was : " Vegetation here is 

 invested with a prodigal luxuriance quite tropical, and utterly 

 unlike the tame monotony that characterizes Australian forests in 

 the interior." The Government surveyors, Messrs. Skene, Smythe, 

 and Scott, afterwards explored and reported on this district. Gold 

 was sought for in the ranges, tindjer was in places cut for the 

 railways, a few sawmills were established, and settlement took place 

 here and there on the banks of the rivers. Yet even now, within a 

 day's journey south of the Western Railway, and of important and 

 early-settled townships, there is a long stretch of country a terra. 

 incognita to all but forest inspectors, energetic shire officials, and a 

 few hardy pioneers. And these have not yet plucked out the heart 

 of its mystery, or gauged the full extent of its resources, the richness 

 of its soil, and value of its timber. 



According to one expert, the forest contains a large percentage of 

 blackwood, satin box, and beechwood, admirably adapted ibr railway 

 carriage building ; properly conserved, it would supply the construc- 

 tion and maintenance of the rolling stock of our railways for the 

 next fifty years. Mr. Ferguson, Inspector-General of State Forests, 

 writes : " I beg to say that in no other part of the colony have I 

 met with so much huge timber of such fine quality, more especially 

 the messmate and mountain ash, the forests of which in this region 

 appear to be, as far as I have penetrated, inexhaustible." Mr. Ivey, 

 secretary to the Central State Forest Board, states: "Both the 

 blue-gum and messmate are in great perfection on this slope of the 

 mount, and the forest here must become of immense value, if pro- 

 tected from fire, as soon as communication is oj^ened up with the 

 settled parts of the colony. A feature of this forest is the great 

 abundance of the blackwood ; no other forest in the colony contains 

 such a wealth of this valuable timber." In December 1882, Mr. 

 P. C. Moroney, engineer of the Colac shire, made a special explora- 



