Page:Handbook of Western Australia.djvu/45

Rh dividing the hill district of the South-West into their several basins, and, in like manner, the basins of the rivers of the South coast open from the reverse of the watershed of the sources of the Blackwood. These are the Gordon, formerly called the Frankland, the Kent or Macquoid, Hay, Kalgan, and Palinup, which drain the area from Cape Chatham to Point Henry at Dillon Bay on a coast line of about 180 miles, all having their sources in the flanks of the great granitic mass of the South-West; as has the Warren between Cape Beaufort and Point D'Entrecasteaux, near which are the smaller rivers Donelly and Gardner, formerly known as the Gordon, and the Shannon and Chesapeake, which fall into Broke's inlet from the North-West. On these there is much good land, and the country about them is well grassed, and consequently has been taken up by stock owners. The forests are from 15 to 20 miles from the coast, but there are groves of peppermint and other trees on the low sandy ranges between the inlets.

The Gordon, rising between the sources of the Palinup and Beaufort, has a Westerly course of 60 miles, when it is joined by the Frankland from the North, which formerly gave its name to the whole river; from thence it has its course through a narrow valley to the rapids at the foot of the hills, and is from thence navigable for small craft to its mouth in Nornalup inlet, which is, however, obstructed by sandbanks. There are many fertile flats and well grassed slopes throughout the valley of this river. The Kent and Kalgan have their rise in a district of small lakes on the outer slopes of the basin of the Gordon. The former has a course of about 70 miles, with no considerable affluents, to Irwin inlet, and is on a smaller scale similar to the Gordon; as is the Hay, falling from the Southern slopes of its watershed,