J""*'l Barnard, Notes of a Visit to W.A. ti 



1919 J 'J J* 



about Cottesloe suits it. However, the flowers were larger 

 and of a deeper yellow than I had seen elsewhere, and one 

 person said it was quite as fine a sight as the everlastings are 

 at the goldfields. 



For the Saturday, a friend of Miss Fuller's, to whom she had 

 written of my coming, kindly invited me to join a few kindred 

 spirits in an outing to Darlington, another locality in the 

 Darhng Range. Unfortunately, the day turned out showery, 

 but I collected and saw enough to be able to say to a prospective 

 visitor to Western Austraha, " Don't miss DarHngton." The 

 Leschenaultia here was wonderful in numbers. Western 

 Austraha boasts of many Stylidiums (Trigger-plants) ; here 

 they were in numbers and of the most curious and quaint 

 designs. 



The next day other friends took me a little further along 

 the same line to the Mundaring Weir, one of the show places 

 of the State. The hne, originally built for the timber traffic, 

 traverses a portion of the Darling Range which had been well 

 timbered, but the best has long been cut out. One of the 

 stations. Mahogany Creek, is the only place that I know of 

 where the word " Creek " forms portion of the name of a 

 locality, the words used in Western Australia being " Brook " 

 or " Well " ; hence Chidlow's Well, a few miles beyond. The 

 weir is on a branch line having a drop of 450 feet in five miles, 

 and perhaps a few words about it and the reason for its exist- 

 ence may be of interest. Earlier in the paper I spoke of 

 Kalgoorlie and its mines. Well, early in the existence of the 

 Coolgardie goldfield, of which Kalgoorhe is part, it was seen 

 that without water the mines could not exist, as the rainfall 

 (lo''), combined with an evaporation of from six to eight feet 

 annually, was too small to provide for local conservation. 

 The nearest permanent water was in the Darling Range, 

 350 miles away, but the Coolgardie table-land was 1,400 feet 

 above sea-level, while the Helena River, which seemed the 

 most likely to provide a regular supply of water, was less than 

 500 feet above sea-level. The problem was faced by the late 

 Mr. C. Y. O'Connor, Engineer-in-Chief of the State, who 

 decided that it could be solved by a huge pumping scheme. 

 This was much ridiculed, but the late Sir John Forrest, 

 knowing from his experiences as an explorer that water was 

 everything in a case like this, backed him up, and, being 

 Premier at the time, persuaded Parliament to adopt the 

 proposal. The weir is 100 feet in height, and closes a pictur- 

 esque gorge, somewhat resembUng the Yarra at Studley Park, 

 and backs up the water for about seven miles. The reservoir 

 can contain about 4,600 millions of gallons of water ; of this, 

 about 3J milhon gallons, weighing about 15,000 tons, are 



