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The MinMin Light HENRY G. LAMOND Henry Lamond, was one of Australia's finest bushmen, he first started collecting stories about bird and animal lore in 1934. He was a keen observer of nature with an ability to make each story come alive for his reader.
One fellow, something of a scientist, has lately propounded the theory that it is an owl or some other nightbird, which has been nesting in a hollow log heavy with fungoid growth impregnated with phosphorus. His idea is that the feathers of the bird have become saturated with that luminous stuff. He has never seen the light. I have. I will not have it that phosphorus does the job. Let me tell how I saw it. Dunng 1912 I was managing Warenda, then the largest station in Queensland, being a few miles short of the round five thousand. During the middle of winter-June or July- I had to go to Slasher's Creek to start the lambmarking. Slasher's Creek was an out-station of sorts across the Hamilton, and, say, about twelve miles below MinMin. On account of an office job I did not leave the head station until about 2 a.m., expecting to get to Slasher's well before daylight. There were but few cars in the west in those days. After crossing the Hamilton River, five miles wide with forty-five channels, I was out on the high downs. As always, when riding at night during the winter, I shortened my leathers a hole or two, rode at the trot, and sang loudly. Those shortened stirrups, when a man rises to the trot, exercises every sinew in his leg and foot; the singing is as warming as a moderate fire- that is the way to keep moderately comfortable when riding on a frosty night. Five or six, or eight or ten, miles out on the downs I saw the headlight of a car coming straight for me. Cars, though they were not common, were not rare. I took note of the thing, singing and trotting as I rode, and 1 even estimated the strength of the approaching light by the way it picked out individual hairs in the mare's mane. Suddenly I realized it was not a car light- it remained in one bulbous ball instead of dividing into the two head lights, which it should have done as it came closer; it was too greeny-glary for an acetylene light; it floated too high for any car; there was something eerie about it. I ceased to sing, though I kept the mare at the trot. She stopped that: she propped her four legs wide, lifted her head, pricked her ears, and she snorted her challenge to the unknown! The light came on, floating as airily as a bubble, moving with comparative slowness- though I did not at the time check its rate of progression. I should estimate now that it was moving at about ten miles an hour and anything from five to ten feet above the ground. In all honesty, and with the candour that age gives, I'll admit here and now that my observations were slightly turned. Its size, I should say, at an approximate guess, would be about that of a new-risen moon. That light and I passed each other, going in opposite directions. I kept an eye on it while it was passing, and I'd say it was about two hundred yards off when suddenly it just faded and died away. It did not go out with a snapits vanishing was more like the gradual fading of wires in an electric bulb. The mare acknowledged the dowsing of the glim by another snorting whistle; it must have been at least five miles or so ere I lifted up my voice again in song. 1 admit also that, for approximately five miles, I let the mare pick her way along the road while I paid more attention to things behind me and in the direction in which I had last seen the light. That is the thing as I saw and remember it. Unlike the fellow who favours owls in hollow logs, I advance no theories. I say only that the area, for miles up and down the river, is a region of mud springs- things from which strange scents and musty gases flow as well as water.
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