182 NEW SOUTH WALES. 



some parts of the sandstone district which produced good crops of 

 grain,* in drier seasons would have been dry to barrenness. 



In such a climate it is not surprising that there are hardly any 

 streams that merit the name of rivers. It is necessary to guard 

 against being misled by the inspection of maps of the country, 

 and forming from them the idea that it is well watered. Such an 

 impression would be erroneous, and yet the maps are not inaccurate; 

 streams do at times exist in the places where they are laid down on 

 the maps, but for the greater part of every year no more is to be seen 

 than the beds or courses, in which, during the season of floods, or 

 after long-continued rains, absolute torrents of water flow, but which 

 will within the short space of a month again become a string of deep 

 pools. Were it not for this peculiar provision of nature, the country 

 for the greater part of the year would be without water, and, conse- 

 quently, uninhabitable. 



The principal rivers which are found to the east of the Blue Moun- 

 tains are, the Hunter, George, Shoalham, and Hawkesbury. None 

 of these streams are navigable further than the tide flows in the 

 estuaries, which sometimes extend twenty or thirty miles inland, for 

 beyond them they are usually no more than twenty inches in depth. 

 Each of these streams has numerous tributaries, which drain a 

 large area of country, and during heavy rains the main branches are 

 suddenly swelled, and cause the floods which have been spoken of. 

 To the west of the mountains, the water-courses are of a very 

 different character. The Darling, for instance, through a course of 

 seven hundred miles, does not receive a single tributary, although it 

 is said to drain an extent of sixty thousand square miles. It possesses 

 the other character which has been mentioned, of being frequently 

 reduced to a mere string of pools. The Darling, Murrumbidgee, 

 and Lachlan, unite about one hundred miles from the ocean, and 

 their joint stream is known by the name of the Murray, which after 

 passing through Lake Alexandria, enters the sea at Encounter Bay. 

 The surface drained by these streams is about two hundred and 

 fifty thousand square miles. 



Another remarkable occurrence observed in these western waters, 

 is the disappearance of a river in swampy lands, where, as is sup- 



* In the diluvial flats along the rivers, the wheat crop is usually about twenty-five 

 bushels to the acre. Forty to forty-five bushels have been obtained, but such crops are 

 very unusual. 



