24 
scenes in the world. Wliat a glorious place for regattas and rowing 
and sailing and pleasure parties, where the spectators could stand on 
the crest of the surrounding ridge, in the dress circle of Nature, 
and look down upon the superb marine stage where the gay performers 
held high festival across the azure floor ! It would excel any of the 
Swiss or Italian lakes in loveliness or surrounding advantages. That 
lake country of the Barron tablelands is the future tropical garden 
and sanatorium of Australia. 
Lake Boonoobagolomee is about the same size as Teetcham. 
Their depth is at 23resent unknown, but a surveyor went out on the 
former on a catamaran and fathomed in one place at 275 feet. They 
are not, as at first supposed, the craters of extinct volcanoes, there 
being no trace of volcanic action more recent than the formation of 
the tableland itself. The bottom will probably be found level with 
the surface of adjoining valle3^s lying outside the surrounding spur 
which encloses the waters of the lake ; that is, from 200 to 4.00 feet in 
depth. The water is pleasant to drink and beautifully clear. Black 
sand was visible mixed with the clay along the margin. The blacks 
speak of a third lake much smaller than the others, but so far it has 
not been seen by white men. 
TIMBEES OF THE DISTEICT. 
There is no part of Australia where so little is known of the 
nature, the varieties, and the quantities of available timbers. The 
vast scrubs of the Upper Barron, overlooked by the Bellenden-Ker 
Range, contain a wealth of trees no less astonishing in their diversity 
than the apparently incalculable amount of timber they represent. 
Those scrubs are certainly to be the source from which Queensland 
must draw her future choicest woods. 
On the coast ranges between Card well and Cooktown the timber- 
getter will be drawing the nation's supplies from the steep spurs 
and dark ravines long after the natural forests of the rest of the 
colony are exhausted. There also will be found the last surviving 
pine and cedar. On the Bellenden-Ker Eange itself there are great 
quantities of valuable timber, at present presumably inaccessible, but 
which in years to come, when timber is dear and scarce, will be brought 
down like pines from the even more unpromising mountains of Norway 
and Switzerland. On all the spurs are large hardwood trees, unknown 
by either local or botanical names. 
The kauri pine, of gigantic size, is found up to 4,800 feet. There 
is no red cedar on either side of " Wooroonooran," save a small patch 
at the foot of the north spur below Toressa. Here I may mention 
one most peculiar eccentricity of nature in the distribution of this 
beautiful timber. Cedar grew in great quantities along both banks of 
the Mulgrave and the Johnstone Elvers, but not a solitary tree has 
over been found on the Eussell, which lies midway between them, and 
actually flows into the Mulgrave a mile before entering the Pacific. 
The Bellenden-Ker Eange divides the Mulgrave and Eussell, but there 
is no range between the Eussell and Johnstone. Nor is there any 
perceptible cause for the remarkable total absence of cedar on the 
Eussell, the soil and climate being exactly the same as the rivers on 
each side. 
