lt^''^ Hardy, The Mallee : Ouyen to Pinnaroo. 157 



1914J 



and would return with provisions, &c. So it eventuated, and 

 we camped, sleeping on the ground as before, but without the 

 springy mattress of hop-bush. At 4.30 next morning I 

 examined a small salt lake near the camp, and a rough sketch 

 made of a vertical section is appended by way of description. 

 On the Exocarpus were red lichens, while those on the Mela- 

 leuca were pale green and of other species. From this camp 

 we rode a few miles south-easterly, and then towards Mount 

 Gnarr, across varying country containing much fiat, poor land 

 bearing luxuriant Porcupine of 3 feet 6 inches vegetative 

 growth, and fruiting at nearly double that height on slender 

 stalks. The Porcupine occupied considerable spaces among 

 scattered low eucalyptus (not in fruit). There was more kopi, 

 and occasional grassy flats where Wallaby-grass, Danthonia 

 penicillata, flourished. This grass is one of the best Mallee 

 fodders in season. On sandy soil and gentle slopes we saw 

 fine trees of Fusamis acuminatus, F. persicarius, and Hetero- 

 dendron olecBfolutm (which last has at least four common names in 

 the Mallee — viz., Emu- tree, Willow% Cabbage, and Quinine or 

 Apple-bush). These were interspersed with pines and Acacia 

 brachybotrya. A . salicina is distributed widely through the Mallee, 

 being the commonest of the acacias. The Weeping Pittosporum, 

 P. pkillyrceoides, grew more abundant as we advanced. Presently 

 a beautiful and novel view broke into the landscape. On 

 ascending a small sandy rise of the better sort we looked down 

 into a depression, and were astonished to see a lake of fair size 

 surrounded by low sand-hills, and bright pink in colour, rendered 

 more conspicuous by the green of the pines, quandongs, sandal- 

 wood, cabbage, and the rest of the group previously mentioned, 

 and which almost surround the lake. There are four of these 

 lakes close together, and the fact that they are situated at a 

 spot where on old maps '* Salt Lakes " was recorded, suggests 

 that the lakes were known before, but were not then pink. 

 The colour is in the salt, not in the water, as far as one could 

 judge. A small quantity of the shallow water appeared colour- 

 less as a similar quantity from " the deep blue sea," and seems 

 due to chemical impurity in the salt, and not to an organism, 

 such as a microscopic alga. At the leew^ard side of the larger 

 lake a fringe of drowned insects — mostly Coleoptera, and con- 

 taining " lady-birds," &c. — marked a ripple limit, beyond which 

 was a strip of wet pink salt. Outside this was a belt of dry, 

 almost white salt, but with intense pink showing at any fracture 

 or vent, and then mud and sand, salsolaceous plants, and grassy 

 slope up to the edge of the depression, where grew a variety 

 of trees already named and Mallee eucalypts. I waded out 

 in the lake some 50 yards or more, but found only a clean, pink, 

 firm bottom of salt. The salt bottom is, however, not 



