Harry Sandford King was employed on trigonometrical and mining surveys in the Yilgarn in late 1888 and most of 1889. Trigonometrical surveys are used in mapping control, to obtain accuracy in positions, and in mileages, for the preparation of new maps.
H.S. King, later Surveyor General of Western Australia, was working for the Lands and Surveys Department as a mining surveyor at an annual salary of three hundred pounds plus one hundred and fifty pounds for forage and travelling, and was 27 years of age when he carried out the trigonometrical surveys in the area, leaving each feature or locality marked with the characteristic HK and relevant number, many of which still survive to this day.
King made trigonometrical surveys in the Mukinbudin locality from February to July 1889 (he did not complete the remainder of the Yilgarn survey till 1891), and did leave a description of the preparations necessary to equip these excursions. In the area behind the Lands Department, saddles, pack saddles, tents, stores, rifles, guns and revolvers were ‘in profusion’. The firearms were considered necessary in the event of trouble with the aboriginals, and for the killing of game to supplement the food supply.
To King we owe the recording of the aboriginal names for features and localities, and though the meanings of these names remain obscure, without his written record many of these names would have been lost forever. His field books record too, details of soil types and vegetation and contain sketch plans of many of the early homesteads of the area—D. Connor’s Yarragin, C. F. Adams’ Mangowine, and Dandanning, where no settler’s name was mentioned.
The presence of the high granite rocks must have been a boon to King, for they provided excellent sites from the top of which to take his readings to the next such rock or hill. For example, on 26 March 1889 trying to fix Dandanning, he took readings from the cairn on the flat granite rock (Dandanning Rock) to Barbalin, Mangowine, the Twins (Knungajin), and marked the position of Dandanning Well as HK82. All his pole in the cairn of rocks—these cairns and poles were called trigs.
The sites were marked with the letters HK (Harry King) and a number. If a tree was present it would serve to carry the symbol; when atop one of the rocks the symbol was on a pole in a cairn of rocks—these cairns and poles were called trigs.
From the top of Elachbutting (HK93) in April 1889 he took readings to Yanncymooning, Dooldangin, the boulder on De-eranning, Beringbooding, Baropin, Waddoin, Geeraning. A great deal of work was entailed in these surveys — the readings were taken using a five inch theodolite and the actual distance between any two points measured, using a chain measure.* Then knowing the length of one side of the triangle and the size of the angles, trigonometrical calculations could then supply them with the distances between other points.
The HK and number as recorded at the site was matched by a corresponding symbol in his field book, where the feature was recorded and named. For example, HK74 Barbalin, HK96 Berringbooding, HK86 Muckenbooding, HK82 Dandanning, HK111 Calcalling, HK88 Wilgoyne. These features were subsequently and accurately transferred to Lands and Surveys lithographs.
On 18 February 1889, King was at ‘Eneuing’ (Ennuin), one of Lukin’s runs, by 2 March, he was marking HK55 on Geelakin Rock. HK68, Cootaning Rock in the extreme south-east corner of the Shire was noted in mid-March as having fine grassy land around it. From HK77 on Barbalin Rock, 24 March, he mentioned light sandy soil, heavily timbered with gimblet (sic) wood and scrub.
On 18 April, he was noting the ‘gritty soil’ at HK96 Beringbooding Granite Rock and wells, and on the 19th marked HK97 at Cunderin not far from ‘Yanoning Granite Rock and feeding patch’. From HK91 ‘Yanneymooning’ Rock he could see ‘to the eastward an unbroken line of high ground sand plain with patches of forest’ — which appeared to run southwards to Cootaning HK68 almost without a break.
HK88 Wilgoyne was marked in April with its surrounds of ‘garara scrub’, ‘bastard salmon gum and scrub’ and ‘open country well grassed’.³¹
In April, too, Ingabulling Hill was mapped, and at Latitude 30°47′ a remarkable group of boulders (granite) rising from high ground surrounded by low scrub was sketched (Engobblein Rocks). HK86 Calcalling tank was pinpointed on 8 April. (King used both spellings — Calcaling and Calcalling).
Early in May, he was on a high ridge of sandplain to the south of Karloning Rock and well, then he marked HK102 Dalkooting with its well twenty eight links in diameter, twenty two links deep and holding seventeen links of water. From there he moved to ‘Waddering’ (sic) HK107, then Billyacatting HK73, Kalyanbudding Hill HK83, Noongarin (sic) HK79, Barbalin HK74 and on to HK111 ‘Muckenbooding’, and the Granite Rock at ‘Mucarnbooding’ (both spellings are given and the pronunciations will be discussed in a later chapter) which was described as ‘well timbered country’, ‘salmon gum and gimblet (sic) wood’, ‘red sandy soil’.
Western Australia at this time was divided into six land divisions, and the Yilgarn and surrounding areas, which include the present Mukinbudin Shire, came under the Eastern Division.
In December 1889 The Honourable J. F. Forrest, Commissioner for Crown Lands and Surveyor General, wrote that he thought that:
‘The greater portion of this division is not likely to be utilised in the near future’,
due to lack of rivers, but great hopes were held for the permanency and richness of the Yilgarn goldfields. Time was to prove the reverse to be the case, although it would be nearly twenty years before, using King’s surveys as his guide, Surveyor M. Terry would classify much of these areas into their various soil types, prior to their survey into wheat farms.
In the late 1970s and 1980s new life is returning, too, to the fields in the Yilgarn as farming goes through a difficult period and interest is revived in gold mining.
King himself, writing to Forrest in February 1891 concerning the country he had surveyed in 1889 and 90, said that there was a considerable extent of good forest country unexcelled in the colony for agriculture if data could be obtained as to the amount of rainfall. He quoted Messrs Adams (Mangowine), Glass (Mujakine), Ward (Wattoning) and Lukin (Wilgoyne) as having for years grown their own hay and had excellent crops but, of course, there was no extensive cultivation. He stressed that there was much good holding ground where water could be conserved by means of tanks (in those times tank was the term used—not dam).
Surveyor [Charles] Crossland confirmed King’s report speaking of:
‘thousands of acres of rich agriculture soil chiefly rich red loam, crab-holey stiff clay, densely covered by giant mallee or salmon gum and low scrub. This land, in my opinion, is the largest area of good land to be met with anywhere near the settled agricultural districts; and should the rainfall be sufficient it will become a large farming district’.
So by 1891, the district had been well described by geologists, prospectors, surveyors and explorers and settled by a handful of hardy pastoralists, whose intrepid spirits (and dire need for more pastures) led them out to make their homes in what seemed to be practically a waterless waste.
[* A length of chain 22 yards long was used hence the derivation of the measure 1 chain = 22 yds (66 feet). The chain consisted of 100 links (one link = 7.92 inches.)]
Excerpt from Page 11-13, On The Line by Jocelyn Maddock