ANNIVERSARY ADDRESS. 27 
Some, if not all, the dead timber now standing along the shore of 
- the lake was killed by the great flood of 1871. The opinion of the 
present residents is that all the trees were killed then, but Sir 
Thomas Mitchell, in his account of a visit to the lake in 1828, 
says—It was a sheet of water 17 miles in length and 7 in breadth. 
The water is slightly brackish, but quite fit for use, and the lake 
was surrounded by dead trees, measuring about 2 feet in diameter, 
which also extended into it until wholly covered by the water. 
An old ‘native told us she remembered when the whole was a 
forest,—a statement supported by the dead trees in its bed.” And 
Mr. John King, who from 1834 to 1841 resided at the lake, says 
that “in 1840 dead trees were still standing at the margin of the 
lake” ; and it seems probable that some of the dead trees seen by 
Sir Thomas Mitchell are still standing, although the gum which 
grows there appears to rot away rapidly. I saw one tree, 4 feet 
in diameter, just inside the 1871 line, partly dead, but evidently 
depending for its little remaining life on some surface roots that 
ran uphill. With reference to the age of these dead trees, I may 
mention that a number of young gum-trees have come up within 
the 1871 line, and are evidently growing very fast. The largest 
of four, standing near the jetty, measures 23 inches round 3 feet 
from the ground, and is something like 25 feet high, or about half 
the height of the older trees near it. I could not ascertain how 
soon it appeared after the 1871 flood, but the opinion of persons 
living there is that it is not more than eight years old; and from 
the fact that it is some 4 or 5 feet nearer the lake than the 1871 
line, it must, I think, have been at least three or four years after 
that flood before it began to grow. 
In reviewing the results of such investigations as I have brought 
before you this evening, one is impressed by the slowness of the 
changes going on around us, and the immense periods over which 
they extend, compared with which the span of human life sinks 
into insignificance. To the scientific worker it seems to say, “You 
must be patient in investigation, accurate in measurement, cautious 
in accepting results, content to stand one in a long series who, for 
the good of humanity, are striving to interpret the laws of Nature.” 
