I02 Dalev, Alpine Gippsland. [voT'xxxtii. 



Grant, and received a hearty welcome at the hotel. The town- 

 ship, named after the Hon. James Macpherson Grant, one of 

 our earlier and much-respected public men, was founded in 

 1864. Previous to this a lone shanty had been the only sign 

 of settlement. In 1861 Mr. A. W. Howitt had discovered 

 alluvial gold in the Good Hope Creek, and an alluvial rush set 

 in to the Crooked River. In 1864 the Alpine Expedition to 

 open up tracks for prospectors in the mountains was sent by 

 the Government to the Crooked River. Thence over 200 miles 

 of mining tracks were made by the party, under Angus M'Millan, 

 the discoverer of Gippsland, as far as Omeo to the north-east 

 and to connect with Harrietville over the Snowy Plains to the 

 north-west. Whilst track-cutting at the Crooked River, gold 

 in the quartz was discovered in the Pioneer reef by the party, 

 and the result was a great influx of diggers. Over 200 reefs 

 were opened, and the camp which had been formed at Skye, 

 or Mount Pleasant, became the prosperous mining town of 

 Grant, which in 1865 had a population of thousands. 

 " Ichabod ! " — at my visit there were only two residents. Year 

 by year after the gold fever had subsided the population 

 dwindled, and the once busy town of the " roaring sixties " 

 sank into nothingness. The town, 4,000 feet above sea-level, 

 stands facing the spur which connects with Mount Wellington. 

 A fine view is obtained of Snowy Bluff, Mount Kent, and Castle 

 Hill — all high mountains, snow-clad in winter, bold and 

 rugged in outline. The district is rich in gold, but its distance 

 from railways, difficulty of access, and the working-out of the 

 lodes near the surface, have prevented further development. 

 The bush is encroaching more and more upon the town, and 

 it is not improbable that, like other decadent mining centres, 

 it will in time completely disappear. 



From Grant the track leads down to Talbotville, on the 

 Crooked River, a tributary of the Wongungarra, which, flowing 

 south on the west of the high plateau containing the Dargo 

 High Plains, joins the Wonnangatta, or Big Water, the chief 

 affluent of the Mitchell. From Talbotville, also a decadent 

 mining centre, M'Millan's track leads up the Wonnangatta 

 River about 30 miles to " Bryce's," one of the outposts of 

 civilization in the wilds. This river has eaten deeply into the 

 ancient lofty plateau which forms the alpine system of North 

 Gippsland, and is, here and there — as on the Dargo High Plains, 

 Snowy Plains, Mount Useful, and Mount Lookout — capped 

 with the residuum of a basaltic flow over the Ordovician, 

 Carboniferous measures, and Miocene gravels. 



A mining track goes over the Snowy Plains, past Mount 

 Tamboritha, right near the head of the Wonnangatta River, 

 which rises to the north-east of Mount Howitt. From the 



