Vol. XXVII. 

 1910 



] Campbell, Rambles Round the Grampians , 31 



RAMBLES ROUND THE GRAMPIANS. 



By a. G. Campbell. 



{Read before the Field Naturalists^ Cluh of Victoria^ 16th May, 1910.) 



It was in the month of July, 1836, that Major Thomas Mitchell, 

 overlanding from Sydney to what is now Portland, while crossing 

 the plains of north-western Victoria, afterwards called the Loddon 

 and Wimmera districts, came in sight of a range of mountains 

 rising abruptly on the south-western horizon. He promptly 

 decided to make a detour towards them, and, attracted by a 

 fancied resemblance to the mountains of the same name in his 

 native land, named them the Grampians, and the highest peak 

 Mt. William, after the then reigning king of Great Britain. He 

 spent two days in exploring around this peak, from which he 

 obtained magnificent views of the surrounding country, and 

 included among the botanical specimens which he collected 

 there were the types of Eucalyptus alpi7ia, Pulte7icea mollis, and 

 Grevillea aqui/olium, all named by Lindley. 



These mountain fastnesses were not, so far as is known, again 

 invaded until the spring of 1853 (Vict. Nat., xxi,, p. 19), when 

 that intrepid botanical explorer, Dr. F. (afterwards Baron von) 

 Mueller, starting at Mount Sturgeon, reaped a harvest of 

 new and characteristic plants from their rocky slopes. Some 

 account of the botany of Mt. Sturgeon will be found in an early 

 Naturalist {Vict. Nat., iv., p. 12, May, 1889). 



To-day the mountams are more accessible. Travellers on the 

 Melbourne-Adelaide railway, when in the vicinity of Stawell, 

 looking to the westward can see these bold, serried peaks rising 

 prominently from their otherwise flat and uniform surroundings. 

 Especially is this the case on the branch line from Ararat to 

 Hamilton, where, for a distance of nearly fifty miles, the train 

 runs parallel to and at no great distance from the Serra Range, 

 well named from its numerous saw-toothed peaks. 



The general shape of the Grampians is that of a giant 

 boomerang. Mount William, 3,830 feet, the culminating point, 

 being on the angle ; the northern extremity, Mt. Zero, being 32 

 miles distant, while Mt. Sturgeon is about 28 miles south-westerly. 

 Behind the Serra Range lies the almost parallel Victoria Range, 

 and further west is the valley of the Glenelg, with the Black Range 

 beyond. 



Mount William is interesting in another way. It marks the 

 watershed of the rivers flowing north to the Murray, and those 

 flowing south to the Southern Ocean ; thus the sources of the 

 Little Wimmera are not far separated from those of the Wannon 

 and the Hopkins. 



In 1901 the mountain was the centre of a gold rush, the 

 precious metal being found associated with granitic outcrops 

 over a somewhat limited area. The mass of the Grampians 



