1S39.] rivers. 227 



oc river, celebrate.il as the place where Captain Cook repaired 

 his ship after it had lain for twenty-eight hours on a coral 

 reef, is in latitude 15° 27' 12" S. : it has a wide month, easy 

 of entrance, but, at a short distance inland, will not float the 

 smallest boat. The Brisbane is undoubtedly the largest' river 

 on the eastern coast. The Shoalhaven and Hawkesbury 

 have fine large bays at their mouths, but like all the other 

 rivers mentioned, their currents are so tortuous that they pos- 

 sess few facilities for internal navigation. The Hawkesbury 

 carries off much the greater share of the rain that falls on the 

 eastern face of the Blue mountains ; its two most important 

 tributaries, the Grose and Cox, issue directly from this range, 

 through ravinesinthe sand-stone rocks,* of from one to thirty- 

 four hundred feet in depth ; and the Nepean, the only other 

 principal affluent, runs along the base of the same chain from 

 fifty to sixty miles. The current of this stream is laggard, 

 not usually exceeding two miles per hour, and it is subject to 

 inundations. Its banks are near thirty feet high ; but the 

 water, in a freshet, sometimes rises as high as ninety feet, 

 and spreads over a great extent of country. The floods occur 

 as often, upon an average, as once in three years, frequently 

 in the midst of harvest, when houses and barns, crops and 

 herds, are suddenly swept to destruction by the rushing 

 waters. 



The Paramatta river, which enters Port Jackson, is but a 

 small stream, and is navigable for steamers, only, sixteen 

 miles above Sydney, where the tide ceases to flow. 



Between longitude 124° 5o' E. and the 135th meridian, on 

 the northern coast, are the Prince Regent, Roe, Hunter, Al- 

 ligator, and Liverpool rivers. The first three flow between 

 rocky and precipitous hills, from three to four hundred feet 

 high ; and the others wind their way lazily through muddy 

 flats, and sandy and monotonous levels. All are full and 

 wide streams, and enter the ocean by vast estuaries, in which 



* It is computed that a mass of rock equal to 134 cubic miles, musf have been 

 displaced by the Cox, and nearly the same quantity by the Grose, m opening 

 their way to the ocean. 



