3 68 



A USTRALASIA ILL USTRA TED. 



Petrel Point and Cape Everard (or Hicks Point) come in view; the latter, a bold 

 headland forming the southern spur of a range which culminates in Mount Everard, 

 seven miles inland, and one thousand two hundred feet high. Eight miles to the west- 

 ward of this, Tamboon Inlet 

 gives access to three lakes, 

 united by narrow channels 

 and fed by two streams 

 the Noorinbee and the Tam- 

 boon, the courses of which 

 are still unexplored. From 

 this inlet to the mouth of 

 the Snowy River the coast 

 is for the most part marshy, 

 with here and there a reedy 

 lagoon, and here and there 

 a shallow lake, which serve 

 as breeding-places for innu- 

 merable wild fowl, and as 

 secure and secluded coverts 

 for their young. One of 

 these lakes, which has ob- 

 tained the name of Syden- 

 ham Inlet, is, however, of 

 tolerably large proportions, 

 and is united by a channel, 

 a mile long, with a smaller 

 sheet of water encircled by 

 hills. But, excepting that 

 the position of Mount Cann, 

 about ten miles to the north- 

 ward, has been defined, the 



country for fifty miles inland remains unexplored. At Cape Conran commences what is 

 commonly called the Ninety-mile Beach, although in reality it is of' much greater extent, 

 stretching, in fact, as far as the entrance to Corner Inlet. Nine or ten miles from the 

 point at which it commences, the Snowy River, whose rise is at no great distance from 

 the sources of the Murrumbidgee in New South Wales, pours into the ocean its opulent 

 flood, to which a hundred tributaries have lent their waters. The Ninety-mile Beach 

 may be described in general terms as a prolonged and attenuated sand-bar, separating 

 the sea from an equally narrow strip of lagoons locally designated the Back Lakes, 

 inside of which are the greater sheets of water to which we shall hereafter have 

 occasion more particularly to refer. Between Shallow Inlet east and the entrance to 

 Corner Inlet quite an archipelago has been formed, under circumstances similar, in all 

 probability, to those which were instrumental in building up the islets upon which the 

 city of Venice was constructed, the rivers Albert and Tarra bringing down alhivinm 



THE GABO ISLAND LIGHT-HOUSE. 



