3-075-026 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

A Ride Across Australia - sketches by Mr. A. J. Vogan, 1890. '1. Our Camp on a Rainy Night. 2. Drinking the Health of the Bore: First Successful Tapping. 3. Interior of an Out-station. 4. Mud-spring on the Border of the Desert. 5. Our Boys Playing at Bingeroo. Mr. Vogan writes: "in addition to numerous permanent water-holes...there are the mud-springs. One of these I discovered myself some fifteen miles from the old head station of Bindiakka...Mr. G. Field, the managing partner, has been very successful in boring for artesian water near some of these springs. My sketch shows one of the most successful of these, giving 150,000 gallons of water per day...[Another sketch shows] our 'boys' at the curious fire-side game of 'Bingeroo.' The fun consists in making the leaves of a species of eucalyptus twirl round and rise in the air, over a roaring fire. The leaves are heated, moulded with the fingers...[and] given a twirl...The ascending current of air carries them...Up and down, the little leaf-boats swoop and tower, whirling away swiftly, while these childish men shriek with delight, jump and jabber...These leaves, when twirled over a hot, large fire, on a still night, will mount fifty feet in the air".' From "Illustrated London News", 1890.