A DESERT IN QUEENSLAND.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXII, Issue 5197, 17 November 1877, Page 1 (Supplement)

A DESERT IN QUEENSLAND.

The whole of West Moreton (says the Observer) is a desert, without a solitary oasis except some swamp, around whose moist edges there is still a little vegetation. The whole of that immense district of the Main Range from Nanango to Mount Lindsay, and downwards to the coast, is as barren of vegetation as if blasted by the simoom that withers all before it. On Franklyn Vale tbe cattle have died in hundreds, and away towards Normanby, Fassifern, Dugandan, Coochin, and away to Maroon aud down to the Logan, there is the same dismal tale of desolation and destruction; away towards Cressbrook, Durundur, and all the country lying on the bead of the Brisbane River, there is a similar story of devastation. Throughout the whole district the cattle are daily dying iu scores, and every creek and .gully shows its long array of rotting carcases. In one little waterhole not ten yards in diameter, on the Upper Bremer, we noticed twelve dead sheep and two cows ; and wherever water is found, there also will be discovered one or more carcases of sheep, cattle, or horses —for horses also have died in considerable numbers. Gloomy as the state of things was known to be, we had no idea the effects of the drought were so general and so disastrous as they really are. We have been through the country between Ipswich and Franklyn Yale, and there were dead, dying, and starving cattle, sheep, and horses all along the road ; aud as one part of the district may be considered an index to the remainder, that one ghastly dreary picture would enable us to conceive the rest. To the farmer it means dead stock and no crops, the two ominous phrases which are to him expressive of present or prospective ruin.