Excerpts – Austin

Excerpts from ‘The Finest Goldfields in the World’. The Austin Expedition to the Murchison in 1854

World’s Largest Tombstone

Its greatest breadth is about 3 miles; and 4 miles from Goomalling the only passage for a cart is through a narrow defile between two rugged hills, from which large granite rocks have slipped, and nearly blocked up the intervening space. One of the largest of these rocks, Norcott informed us, was lying on a poor black fellow who was passing and buried under it when it fell. This melancholy story invested the stone with a degree of interest; so I examined and measured it, and found the length 52 feet, height 46 feet, and thickness 33 feet, and the sharp form and dimensions corresponded so exactly with the depression in the adjacent escarpment from which it had fallen, that I am satisfied the fracture is of comparatively recent date, and I am disposed to believe the sad accident occurred as stated, so that this rock, which contain 78,936 cubic feet, and weighs nearly 6000 tons, is probably the largest tombstone in the world.

Page 10

Gun Incident

I narrowly escaped being, killed here … I had laid my gun loaded with ball against the ledge of rock on which I stood, and, while stooping pulling it up, the hammer caught against the rock and exploded the cap when the muzzle was at my breast; providentially, the gun missed fire, for the first and only time on the Expedition.

I narrowly escaped being, killed here … I had laid my gun loaded with ball against the ledge of rock on which I stood, and, while stooping pulling it up, the hammer caught against the rock and exploded the cap when the muzzle was at my breast; providentially, the gun missed fire, for the first and only time on the Expedition.

Page 61

Exciting Discovery

The most exciting discovery was that of the Night parrot, which was completely new to science. The specimen collected was examined in London and described as the type by John Gould. This specimen is now in the Natural History Museum, Tring, England.  Austin had termed this species ‘Beautiful ground parrot’, indicating that he distinguished it from the well known Ground parrot Pezoporus wallicus that occurred in coastal south-west Western Australia. Because this specimen represents the first and last specimen collected in Western Australia with a specified locality, this species has been presumed extinct in Western Australia.

Recently it has been observed alive near the Fortescue marshes in the Pilbara region.

Appendix H, page 162.