Lot 7 3: hardwood ridges.

Pine timber.

of good land, and particularly in Lot 13, which intersect this barren; forming ridges of hard wood across, or nearly across, the Island. Enmore River runs principally into Lot 10: it is but a small branch of it which forms George River in Lot 13. 2 The shortest passage from water to water would have been between this branch and Goodwood River3, but that line would go through barren where it would be extremely difficult to make a Summer road. Mr Lobban4 has drawn the line [shown on the map] of an imaginary Road from the head of Goodwood River to the actual Road now called the Mill Road. This imaginary line will constitute the boundary of several very good interior farms, and will at some future period be opened: Near the Mill the Scite of the Church and School lands (130 Acres) [shown on the map] has been chosen by Government to be reserved according to the condition of the Grant; and from this Church land it is proposed to open the Road (or "Portage" as it is called here) across Lot 13 to Seymour River. The course will go through a vein of hard wood land nearly all the way, by making a small inclination to the westward in one place, to avoid a swamp; by which means there will be a complete communication established all through Lot 13 in land which that communication will tend rapidly to settle.

0n the map enclosed with the letter he has written on the area between the present 0x and Sheep Rivers the fol/o wing:

Plenty of Pine Timber 5

1 . Palmer’s ’Seymour River’ (a name he coins in the letter in honour of the proprietor) is the conﬂuence of the present Ox and Sheep Rivers — which he labels on the plan as the North and South Arms of Seymour River. He also marked on the plan two potential ’seats’ for a mill, one on the North Arm (i.e. Ox River) and the other on the South Arm (Sheep River). Since later in the letter he comments that the ‘North-east’ mill site (presumably the one on the North Arm) is the better of the two sites, this is presumably where ’the cheapest mill’ could be erected.

2. Le. what is now Robbs Creek - but later boundary corrections have placed this in Lot 12.

3. On his plan ’Goodwood River’ is what is now Trout River.

4. A surveyor, mentionned elsewhere in the letter.

5. These words can be fairly precisely located on his plan as lying along the ridge of land between the two

rivers and running inland from what is now the Victoria West crossroads.