Note 19 — Chapter II

Water is proverbially “unstable,” but what occurred to Major Mitchell’s party on the Yarrayne, may serve for a specimen of the peculiar uncertainty of the waters of Australia. In the evening a bridge across that stream had been completed, and everything was prepared for crossing it, but in the morning of the following day no bridge was to be seen, the river having risen so much during the night, although no rain had fallen, that the bridge was four feet under water, and at noon the water had risen fourteen feet,—a change that could only be accounted for by the supposed melting of the snow near the sources of the stream.