.

FROM WEST TO EAST.
19.1.

AUSTIN.
By 1854 the gold fever was running high in Australia, and each colony was eager to discover new diggings within its borders.

Robert Austin, Assistant Surveyor-General of Western Australia, was instructed to take charge of an inland exploring party to search for pastoral country, and to examine the interior for indications of gold.
He started from the head of the Swan River on a north-easterly course, and on the 16th of July reached a lake, rumours of whose existence had been spread by the blacks, who had called it Cowcowing.

The colonists had hoped that it would prove to be a lake of fresh water in the Gascoyne valley, but Cowcowing in reality was a salt marsh, no great distance from the starting-point of Austin's expedition.
The lake was dry and its bed covered with salt incrustations, showing that its waters are undoubtedly saline.