404 AUSTRALASIA ILLUSTRATED. 



counted, none of which have been less than forty feet in circumference at their base. 

 This variety is remarkably rapid in its growth, and has been known to reach a height 

 of sixty feet in nine years, besides being one of the hardiest members of its species. 

 Its foliage is exceptionally rich in oils of great value, both medicinally and economi- 

 cally, as not less than five hundred ounces have been distilled from one thousand 

 pounds of the fresh leaves of the Eucalyptus amygdalina with their stalklets and branch- 

 lets. These forests are the home of the Eucalyptus globulus, .the most precious gift, 

 perhaps, which the flora of Australia has presented to the Old World. The seeds of 

 this tree, the leaves of which are literally for "the healing of the nations," were first 

 sent to Italy for plantation in the Pontine Marshes, by Dr. Goold, the late Archbishop 

 of Melbourne, in 1869, and thus was commenced a movement which seems destined to 

 combat and conquer malaria in all its European haunts. 



The minor streams which flow into the sea or its inlets in the south-western portion 

 of Gippsland such as the Albert, the Tarra, the Agnes, the Morwell, the Powlett, the 

 Bass, the Tarwin, the Franklin, the Tarago, the Buneep and the Moe drain the lower 

 part of the county of Buln Buln, as also that of Mornington ; the Lang Lang and the 

 Tarago creeping sluggishly through a wide-spreading marsh of not less than seventy 

 thousand acres in extent, and bearing the native name of the Kooweerup Swamp. 



To the westward of the Yarra the Plenty takes its rise in the ranges which were 

 first crossed by Hume and Hovell in the year 1824, and received the name of the 

 former, but they are now generally known as the Plenty Ranges. They form an integral 

 portion, however, of the Great Divide, and the stream just spoken of flows into a 

 reservoir constructed by throwing an embankment across the valley, and serves as one 

 of the main sources of water-supply to the city of Melbourne and its belt of populous 

 suburbs. About forty miles distant, in a straight line to the westward, the Saltwater 

 River heads back to the cordillera, and receiving many creeks in its serpentine course, 

 accomplishes a journey of a hundred miles before it discharges itself into the Yarra, a 

 few miles above the head of Hobson's Bay. 



A little to the northward of Mount Wilson, which forms part of a spur thrown off 

 by the Great Dividing Range, the Werribee takes its rise, and flows through a highly 

 picturesque country, like its principal affluent, the Lerderberg, until it reaches Bacchus 

 Marsh ; below this it begins to groove a deep channel through a wide-spreading cham- 

 paign, across which its tortuous course is clearly defined by an irregular avenue of trees, 

 eventually finding an outlet in Port Phillip Bay, not many miles to the eastward of the 

 outfall of the Little River, the unimportance of which is sufficiently denoted by its 

 expressive name. 



The right branch of the Moorabool has its origin close to the sources of the 

 Werribee ; while the left, locally known as the Lai Lai Creek, heads to the Great 

 Dividing Range, a few miles to the north-east of Ballarat. The two streams effect a 

 junction five miles to the eastward of a township bearing the poetical name of Elaine ; 

 and the River, pursuing a southerly direction, skirting the Steiglitz Ranges, flows through 

 some romantic scenery, with high cliffs rising like a gigantic wall upon one side of the 

 stream, until it merges its separate existence in that of the Barwon, which absorbs also 

 the waters of the Yarrowee. The latter comes down from the north, and has its birth 



