Title

Plate 11: Crater of Mount Gambier, South Australia.

Author

Author not identified

Source

[Not applicable]

Publication date

1868

Type

About the work

Language

English

Country of context

Australia

Full text

Plate 11: Crater of Mount Gambier, South Australia.

Of the comparatively limited number of extinct volcanoes in Australia, the above is, perhaps, the most remarkable and, to geologists, the most interesting. It is not so much a crater, as a series of craters, about six miles in circumference, filled with fresh water, and walled in by precipitous rocks of black lava, brown ash, and coralline. These walls vary in height from 200 to 300 feet, and are sprinkled with shea-oak, tea-tree and honeysuckle. The Blue Lake crater, which is the most distant from the spectator, is about 240 feet deep, and has obtained its name from the exquisite azure tint of the water, which is as clear as crystal. The edges of the basin, in which it lies, are of almost uniform height, and the Rev. Julian Woods concludes that whatever eruption took place from this crater, it was sustained from a line in the centre, without being subject to any variation. Between the Centre Lake and the Valley Lake, which occupies the foreground of the picture, there is no barrier wall, such as rises between the Blue Lake and the Centre Lake, but a narrow neck of land, indented by three circular ponds. The slopes are well grassed, and the pastoral tranquillity of the present scene has been contrasted with the awful grandeur it must have exhibited during an eruption, by the writer previously referred to, in a chapter which presents a rare combination of poetic feeling with scientific lore. After a graphic description of the primæval landscape, of the earthquake, and the tremendous outbreak of the subterranean fires, which might have caused even Vulcan to think —

In Chaos antiquum confundimur . . . .

…Neque enim tolerare vaporem/

Ulterius potuit, nic dicere plura;

Mr. Woods goes on to observe – “But now how changed is the scene! the smoke has cleared away, and the fires are extinct. Nature is at her repose. The melted walls have cooled, and an azure lake covers them. The ashes on the bank are covered with verdure, and reeds grow where fire glowed. The underground thunders are indeed heard no more, but the wind sends a soft moaning through the shrubs, while the gentle splashing of the calm and glassy lake is now the only echo that is heard from shore to shore.”

Mount Gambler occupies the centre of a tract of splendid agricultural land, farmed principally by German settlers. There is a township at the foot of the hills; and the plains shown in the distance are timbered with gum and blackwood, and stretch away to the sea coast, which is faintly indicated by a line of low sand hills on the horizon.

Accompanying text, 1868.