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156 PROCEEDINGS. 
tinued running a good stream up to 1855, when I left that 
district. By that time many other stations ‘had been taken up 
low ours.” 
Mr. E. M. M‘Kinlay, under date November 19, says :—‘ On 
Black Thursday, February 6, 1851, I left Melbourne on a 
journey to the Darling, and travelled nearly as far up as Wil- 
cann ter forming the station we had to camp with our 
horses in the bed of the river, as there was seed a bite of grass to 
be had away from it. The bed of the was then, and had 
been for months, quity dry, with the stoeption of small water- 
holes at considerable distances from each othe er, and around these 
to my oo they did not seem uneasy about the condition of 
the country. t a station about 150 miles see Wentworth, on 
the sitions bank of the river, I saw a spring of cool, clear 
water running out of a small ‘hollow inguin that had been 
inserted into the bank.” 
Mr. D. Mackay, under date November 21, says :—“In 
Jd une, 1865, I travelled down the Darling from Brewartina to 
within 50 miles of the junction of the Darling and the Murray. 
The country was a perfect desert, and we had to feed the cattle in 
the bed of the river, for there was not a vestige of grass on the 
plains. =e bed of the river was dry for miles in many places— 
simply a chain of waterholes, some of which were quite salt, 
ieaiaily near Bourke.” 
Mr. J. S. M’Intosh, under date December 12, says :—‘“ The 
Darling was low at Wentworth in 1861, but got very low in 
1862, and the two steamers “ Lady Daly” and “Settler,” in trying 
to get up the river in October, stuck 30 miles above Went- 
worth, and had to discharge their cargoes ; and from that time 
till February, 1863, the river kept getting yee. until it be- 
came perfectly dry, and was a chain of water-holes from Bourke 
caused by rains in ‘Queensland, and from that time to : uly, 
1864, the river was nearly always a “banker.” Our las 
that year was in April, and from that until January, 1866, ther 
was not pore than half an inch of rainfall on any part of 
Darling from Bourke to Wentworth. The river fell rapidly after 
July, fee and all the winter of 1865 was extremely low, and all 
the creeks were dry. The cold was very severe—white frosts all 
the winter—and the fish in the river died, killed, aw was supposed, 
by the cold. In November, 1865, the river so low at 
Dunlop, 80 miles below Bourke, that I could cee over it. 
And at Gundabooka the water was so sal 
att ig te the banks of the river, be 2 could not 
drink In January, 1866, there very heavy 
