as he travelled downstream, every 7–10 miles a little water was observed in the bed. Twenty three miles downstream of Fernihurst the channel was barely perceptible. Another source within the Loddon catchment, Morrison (2002), recounts aboriginal descriptions of the pre-European environment. Water was mentioned as being scarce at times, as evidenced by the practice of using banksia flowers to filter the water from waterholes that were drying out. Interpretation Whilst it is difficult to generalise across the whole of the state, it appears from our focus catchments that smaller streams were originally dominated by waterholes and had less well- defined channels. The lower Loddon River had a fairly similar morphology with a deep well-defined channel, again with significant bed variability in terms of pools. This evidence aids in understanding the receiving waters into which the sludge was poured. Stage 2: Pre-mining (1803–1851) Evidence Maps and surveyors’notebooks provide information on the Victorian landscape as it was settled. Many early maps have been digitised and are available online from different sources, such as the State Library of Victoria. In our study areas we have geo-rectified the maps so that historic river channel locations can be viewed against the current river channel locations (Figure 4). The surveyor’s notebooks were more difficult to access, and many are not digitised so that physical copies had to be requested from the Public Record Office Victoria. It has long been understood that European settlement, and the associated land clearance, resulted in reduced evapotranspiration and increased surface runoff and, as a consequence, increased soil erosion and gullying. These changes have been modelled across Australia by CSIRO using SEDNET (Prosser et al. 2001). Much of the landscape clearing was coincident with mining activities. However, the modelled yields do not include sediment directly produced by mining. The SEDNET yields have been compared to estimates of yields from mining (Figure 5), revealing that yields from mining can be up to 600 times the“natural”annual sediment loads. Interpretation The relatively limited amount of data available on the intervening period between European settlement and the gold rush suggests that minimal disturbance had occurred in upstream mining areas. In recent times layers of modern sediment found deposited on floodplain surfaces, or exposed on riverbanks, have been ascribed to land clearance. These deposits have been called“Post European Settlement Alluvium” (PESA). In mining regions sediment yields were well above the natural rates, and care needs to be taken in how these sediments are interpreted. Figure 4.  The 1855 stream position of Hodgsons Creek at Tarrawingee overlain with the 2010 position. Feature Mining to mud 46 PREVIEW JUNE 2019