HISTORY OF FLOODS IN THE RIVER DARLING. 209 
but did not succeed in doing so, the big waves hurled me about 
anywhere, and I was glad to take advantage of an eddy to get 
out again almost exhausted. The floods in this river produce 
great changes, filling up large deep waterholes, which have been 
used for years for ‘sheep washing , and as favourite resorts for 
course prior to the flood. I should think this original channel 
had been filled up long before the discovery of this continent. In 
my experience of that t part of the colony watered b che Lower 
Macquarie, Castlereagh, and Namoi Rivers, and their tributaries, 
extending from 1864 to 1875, I found it constantly subject to 
great extremes, devastating floods, disastrous droughts, or clothed 
with vegetation of such luxuriance as ave never met with in 
any other part of the colony. The amount of water which runs 
away somewhere in the Darling, Macquzrie, and Castlereagh 
Rivers, if some practicable means ‘could be discovered for storing 
it and using it for purposes of irrigation, would, I think, 
ample to feriilize and make an immense tract of country produc- 
tive to an unprecedented extent. 
Discussion, 
Mr. Mann remarked that the theory of the cycle of nineteen years, 
as stated by Mr. Russell, would be greatly modified by the number 
of cattle in the flood district. The beds of rivers have been filled 
up and made sandbeds by cattle tracks. Cattle on their way to 
water invariably make tracks; after heavy rains these tracks 
become water-courses, and eventually a gully is formed. Immense 
gorges have thus been cut, and if this is carried on to any great 
extent it must affect the flooding, as the water is not kept alto- 
gether within the original banks of the river but is carried far 
over the “neath country. Settlers have reached their land we 
boats. The next year the river on which they sailed has 
filled up with sand, and the following year even the vessels aie 
been covered up. 
Mr. Cnartes Moore said that the fact of finding grass at the 
bottom of a recent river-bed is not an indication that water has 
not boas there for some time. Fifteen months ago he P sae 
