CHAPTER LXXXII 

 J. T. EMBLEY'S EXPLORATIONS AND SURVEYS 



I. EXPEDITION FROM THE HANN RIVER TO THE GULF 

 AND BACK TO THE (SOUTH) COEN, 1884 



WITH WILLIAM CLARKE. NARRATIVE SPECIALLY WRITTEN FOR THIS WORK. START 

 FROM HANN RIVER, MAY, 1884. COLEMAN RIVER. NATIVE DWELLINGS AND 

 CAMPS. DOMESTIC ARRANGEMENTS. WESTWARD DOWN COLEMAN RIVER. TURN 

 NORTHWARD. EDWARD RIVER DISCOVERED. A CAMP OF THE BROTHERS JARDINE ? 

 NATIVE BURIAL CUSTOMS. HOLROYD RIVER. TAPPING TREES FOR DRINKING 

 WATER. KENDALL (?) RIVER. NORTH-WESTERLY OVER SANDSTONE TABLELAND. 

 OFF THE TABLELAND. GOOD COUNTRY. DRAY TRACKS LEADING TO " OLD 

 ROKEBY " STATION, THEN BEING FORMED. THE SOUTH COEN TO DESERTED COEN 

 DIGGINGS AND LALLA ROOKH STATION. 



MR. EMBLEY 1 is a Licensed Surveyor, who for many 

 years was attached to the Queensland Department of 

 Lands. In 1884, he and WILLIAM CLARKE, with three 

 others, left the Hann River, south of Princess Charlotte 

 Bay, and made a long journey westward almost to the Gulf of 

 Carpentaria, northward to what is now known as the Kendall 

 River, north-eastward to the South Coen River and eastward to 

 the then deserted township at the Coen diggings and to Lalla 

 Rookh Station. 



The expedition covered a great deal of new country, and its 

 geographical results were valuable because of the survey which 

 Mr. Embley carried on as he went. He has been good enough 

 to write for my information an account of the journey, which is 

 given below, and to which I have added some notes : 



" We started from a point on what was then known as the HANN OR BASALT RIVER, 

 and is now known as the MOREHEAD RIVER,* some time in May, 1884. [SEE MAP E.] 



1 Born at Castlemaine, Victoria, in 1858. 



' ? The start appears to have been made from a point about a mile below the junction 

 of the river which Mulligan, on his fifth trip in 1875, named the Hann River, and near 

 Mulligan's Camp 80. The rush to the Coen alluvial diggings in 1878 had been succeeded 

 by the pastoral occupation of a good part of the land between the diggings and Cook- 

 town, and the new-comers knew little of and cared less for the names given to rivers 

 by their early explorers. The Hann River became the Basalt I have often wondered 

 why, as it is innocent of basalt or any other igneous rock. Mr. Embley explains that at 

 the crossing of the river by the Cooktown-Lakefield-Coen diggings track there is a bed 

 of honeycombed sandstone, and as this has been blackened, perhaps by contact with 

 : vegetation and salt water, it may have been mistaken for basalt. 



In 1886, the construction of the Cape York Telegraph line brought to light the 

 branch of the Hann which was named the Morehead River, flowing from the south- 



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