THE TOWNS OF NEW SOUTH WALES. 



be the oldest in New South Wales, and in the same district are some of the most 

 recent. Wood found embedded in the ground when first exhumed can he worked with 

 carpenters' tools, but after being exposed for some time to a dry atmosphere assumes 

 the characteristics of bituminous lignite. 



Turning northwards from Bombala over basaltic country, a long day's journey brings 

 the traveller to the important town of Cooma, towards which a railway from Goulburn 



WOLLONGONG HARBOUR. 



has been recently extended. This is the 

 great pastoral centre of the south-east 

 corner of the colon)'. Thirteen years ago 

 a prison was erected here which has filled 



successively the purposes of a temporary lunatic asylum and a lands office, although it is 

 intended ultimately for a penal establishment. But more harmonious with the surroundings, 

 which are grand in point of scenic attraction, is the distant Hospital, a well-conducted and 

 very useful institution. A few miles off, the River Murrumbidgee, a shallow stream, flows 

 sluggishly through rich tracts of deep black soil. The country around for the greater 

 part is bare of timber, but on the ridge-tops are fringes of stunted trees. Each hill has 

 its spring, each gully its stream, no part of the colony being better watered or less 

 subject to drought. Its grazing capabilities have long stood severe tests, and it still 

 ranks high for stock-breeding purposes. Like Bombala, the locality is also well adapted 

 for the plough. Better wheat-soil could not be desired. In a geological sense this 

 southern district closely resembles the northern table-lands, the formation being precisely 

 similar; on the coast, silurian rocks; on the mountain-tops, basalt and large areas of 

 granite. Cooma is about two thousand seven hundred feet above sea-level ; and, being 

 much exposed to the chilling blasts which come from the Snowy Range, its winters are 

 extraordinarily severe. Colder still is Kiandra, which is north-west from Cooma a long 

 day's ride. Here, in the heart of the Australian Alps, although only three hundred and 

 twenty miles from the metropolis, the seeker after adventures may indulge in Arctic 

 seasons and experience the sensation of being " snowed up " for months at a stretch, 



