The Inner West
Built on basalt plains swathed with grasslands and sinuously carved by riverine wetlands, Melbourne's inner western suburbs are now dominated by heavy industry, commercial traffic and housing.
Focussed around Saltwater Crossing on what is now the Maribyrnong River, Footscray has been a crossroad, in every sense of the word, since the village reserve was surveyed in 1848. Quarries were established on the edge of the basalt plain providing 'bluestone' for Melbourne's building boom. Boiling-down works, abattoirs and noxious trades made the most of the transport and waste disposal opportunities offered by the river1.
In the twentieth century refined fossil fuels drove the wheels of industry even faster, with the inner west the crucible for the bourgeoning petro-chemical industry's development. Once again the landscape was transformed, with huge tanks and a forest of cranes moving freight ever more swiftly in and out of the port.
For better or for worse, raw materials for the chemical industry are still stored at Coode Island, a few kilometres from the city's heart. It was there at the junction of the 'Yarra River and Saltwater Creek' that the larvae of the Orange Spotted Moth (Amata sp) was collected on the salt tolerant succulent Beaded Glasswort.
This small sample, from what is now a lost landscape, was taken to the University of Melbourne laboratory to be identified by William Kershaw and carefully illustrated by Arthur Bartholomew. On 10 August 1860 the larvae emerged from its chrysalis and was pinned for inclusion in the Museum's collection.
Whilst still supporting much of Melbourne's heavy industry, the west is now the site for vigorous rehabilitation of salty marshes and wetlands. These valuable environments remain the focus for migratory birds from north Asia, which race the container ships south on their journey across the sea.
1John Lack,The Encyclopedia of Melbourne, Andrew Brown May and Shurlee Swain (eds), Cambridge University Press, Port Melbourne, 2005, pp. 280-81.