Salmon’s Well

Very rare, c.19th hand coloured engraving depicting a boy known as ‘Mat’, who was well known in the district as a skilful bushman, standing with his pony, near the well named after Thomas Salmon in the Dandenong Ranges near Melbourne.

The illustration represents a well in a most lovely and sequestered spot situated at Fern Tree Gully, Dandenong Ranges, about five miles from the Emerald Diggings. It supplies the only water that can be obtained in this locality for some miles, at least there is none nearer than at the One Mile Creek, close to the diggings, and that frequently is brackish, or otherwise unfit for use. Salmon’s Well has been so called on account of a very well known old man of the name of Thomas Salmon living on the land at the bottom of which the water flows. The surrounding district has been surveyed and laid out in allotments, and should a township ultimately be formed here, this well will be found an inestimable treasure. Being upon the Government reserve, it will be available to all settlers, and will truly prove to be to them, as it is to the worn-out and weary wanderer, “a diamond in the desert.” The figures are portraits. The boy, known for miles as “Mat,” is exceedingly skilful as a bushman, and would prove a great acquisition to the adventurous who may have the ambition to explore the hidden recesses and grandeur of the surrounding mountains. The horse on which the boy appears to rest his arm has strayed and been tracked by him to the well. On recovering breath after his pursuit he will remount his old pony and drive the strayed horse homewards before him.

From the original edition of, The Australian News for Home Readers.