' Internal Communication. 75 



The rivers of any note running into Port Phillip are — the 

 Yarra Yarra, which receives the Saltwater, and the Werribee. 



The Yarra Yarra, taking its rise in the same southerly spur 

 of the dividing range from which the La Trobe flows eastwards, 

 is fed, like the Gipps Land rivers, by perennial streams, taking 

 their rise in the primitive rock formations in a district where 

 vegetation is so luxuriant as to be almost impenetrable. The 

 course of the Yarra is most tortuous in the lower part ; and 

 the distance from its source to Melbourne may exceed eighty 

 miles in a direct line. One peculiarity in the Yarra is, its 

 great depth in proportion to its width. It receives numerous 

 feeders, mainly from the north, as it recedes from the dividing 

 range, the course of which is, on the whole, westerly. Of these 

 tributaries the most important is the Plenty, which enters it 

 from the north, after a course of about thirty miles from the 

 dividing range. 



On this river, about nineteen miles from Melbourne, we have 

 an example of what may be done here in the way of intercepting 

 and storing water. By a solid embankment, a reservoir called 

 the Yan Yean has been formed, with a surface area of about 

 -1,300 acres, and an average depth of 18 feet. Into this the 

 stream of the Plenty, which here drains an area of broken 

 country estimated at 40,000 acres, is conducted, and an amount 

 of 6,400,000,000 gallons of water secured for the supply of the 

 city of Melbourne, to which the water is conducted in closed 

 pipes. 



The Saltwater River takes its rise in Mount Macedon, a 

 point in the dividing range about 3000 feet high, and the last 

 portion of the range towards the west, which supplies water in 

 abundance. 



The river takes its name from the saltness of its water in the 

 last ten miles of its course, caused by the influx of water from 

 salt springs about Keilor. It is navigable for some few miles 

 above its junction with the Yarra, three miles from Hobson's 

 Bay. This river and its tributary creeks are peculiarly 

 depressed below the generally level surface of the County of 

 Bourke, through which they run. 



The Werribee runs into Port Phillip Bay on its N.W. side, 

 between Geelong and Melbourne, rising to the N. W. about sixty 

 miles off, in the Blackwood ranges, about 2000 feet above the 

 sea. These ranges are unlike the Yarra ranges, hardly able to 

 maintain a constant supply of water during the summer. 



The next district which claims our attention, is that extending 

 westward of Port Phillip, to the confines of the colony. The 



