Bay of Biscay Country

See also, crab holes and dead men’s graves.

Named after the Bay of Biscay which is notorious for its rough seas and violent storms, “Bay of Biscay country” describes the dangerous and uneven ground which can be present in certain areas.

“Crab-holes” can be found on the surface which were often the cause of serious accidents. They can occur on the basaltic plains and are generally due to the unequal decomposition of the underlying rock.

Bay of Biscay Country is marked on the Moolort Plains near Carisbrook on this 1860 map of the Castlemaine Mining District.

From William Howitt’s Land, Labour, and Gold, 1853

From this place we went over a flat country with a rich soil, admirably calculated for agriculture, a fat soil, and not the picturesque, being what farmers look after. In a couple of miles, or so, we got out of the fences, but were immediately met by new difficulties in what are called Crab-holes and Dead-men’s Graves.

These are all connected with volcanic agency, and abound, as well as the basaltic masses of stone, in volcanic districts. Crab holes, or Frog-holes, as they are called in some districts, from land crabs and frogs frequenting them when they hold water, are small pools or quagmires some few yards across, more or less, but so scattered about over certain places that it is next to impossible to pass between them, and as to going across them with your cart, that is out of the question. They are often of unascertainable depth of mud, and are supposed to be occasioned by fissures in the volcanic rock beneath, through which the water has been originally sucked down, as it were, carrying the earth with it, and leaving these holes on the surface, which in time have become glutted with mud, probably, as it has been baked in the summer, and so made capable of holding water. This is the case even with large volcanic craters, which instead of fire now hold lakes.

Akin to these Crab-holes are the Dead-men’s Graves. They are oblong heaps of earth distributed over certain extents of these low, volcanic plains, which for all the world present the appearance of a grave-yard. The heaps or mounds are placed almost as regularly as the squares of a chess-board. Yet not exactly ; for they are never in rows so as to allow you to pass between them. There is a heap and a hollow on every side of you, turn which ever way you will : and it is impossible to conceive the unpleasantness and difficulty of passing across them with a loaded cart. It is bounce, bang, bang, bounce all the way. Yet over them you must go, sometimes for a quarter or half a mile. I can only suppose that they are occasioned by the basaltic stones beneath having settled into that shape. Many people have been simple enough to believe them burying grounds of the natives. But the natives never did or do bury in any one particular place.