This country gives rise to several streams, shedding into a large brook, which we crossed two miles from Goomalling, at the junction of a rivulet flowing from a granite and warrine hill called Kooranning, three miles N.E., at the north end of which the natives describe a permanent spring; the main brook trending to the south-west, and discharging the accumulated waters into the Salt River.

Its greatest breadth is about 3 miles; and 4 miles from Goomalling the only passage for a cart is through a narrow defile between two rugged hills, from which large granite rocks have slipped, and nearly blocked up the intervening space.  One of the largest of these rocks, Norcott informed us, was lying on a poor black fellow who was passing buried under it when it fell.

This melancholy story invested the stone with a degree of interest; so I examined and measured it, and found the length 52 feet, height 46 feet, and thickness 33 feet; and the sharp form and dimensions correspond so exactly with the depression in the adjacent escarpment from which it had fallen, that I satisfied the fracture is of comparatively recent date, and I am disposed to believe the sad accident occurred as stated, so that this rock, which contains 78,936 cubic feet, and weighs nearly 6000 tons, is probably the largest tombstone in the world.

The full report of Austin’s expedition is in the fourth Volume in the Western Australian Exploration series:

Bridge, Peter J., Epton, Kim, Hercock, Marion and Milentis, Sheryl (eds), ‘The Finest Goldfields in the World’: The Austin Expedition to the Murchison in 1854, Hesperian Press, Carlisle, Western Australia, 2009.

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