and Geology of 'New South Wales. 119 



ver been tried here, nor does the government seem to appre- 

 ciate the value of such information. Some years ago, and dur- 

 ing the administration of Sir Thomas Brisbane, specimens of 

 muriate of soda were picked up in the country. Nothing has 

 since been done to follow up the discovery, though nothing 

 could be more obvious than its importance; and we continue 

 to depend on irregular supplies of that useful mineral from 

 England. I am informed that the present government has 

 been too much employed making arrangements to pay atten- 

 tion to these subjects. In short, with the exception of Mr 

 Busby, civil engineer, and Mr Berry of Shoalhaven, I have 

 seen or heard of no one in the colony who would know green- 

 stone from wacke, or basalt from bloodstone. Botany, though 

 of very remote advantage to the country, appears to be par- 

 ticularly encouraged, and every facility is liberally afforded 

 to its professors in extending their researches, which at most 

 can only increase slowly the catalogue of plants, and exhibit 

 the endless diversity of the vegetable creation, thereby gratify- 

 ing the laudable curiosity of only a few individuals in Europe, 

 but can never realize the practical utility and solid advantages 

 to the colony or the mother country, which would probably 

 result from a knowledge of its minerals. 



This is a very fine agreeable climate, and, with the excep- 

 tion of catarrh, there are no epidemic diseases known ; and 

 those complaints which are common to children in Britain, such 

 as measles, hooping-cough, small-pox, &c. have no existence in 

 this climate. In summer the heat is very oppressive in the 

 sun, particularly during the hot winds from the N. W., which 

 do not occur above a few days in a season. Thev induce a 

 sort of nervous or feverish excitement during the day, and a 

 chilly feeling in the evening from the sea-breeze, which then 

 always sets in. Nothing more disagreeable is the consequence. 

 The native blacks are a wretched race of human beings, harm- 

 less and undesigning ; have little or no ingenuity, much less 

 than many of the lower animals. They lie and live among the 

 bushes like the beasts of the field, and seldom inhabit the same 

 spot above once. They erect no hut to repose in during the 

 night ; only collect a few branches of trees, which they fix in 

 the ground, to shelter them on one side from the influence of 



