NEW SOUTH WALES. 279 



millions of pounds. With these facts, the rapid accumulation of 

 fortunes in New South Wales will no longer be a mystery. 



It is said that the owners of stock have already pushed their stations 

 one hundred and twenty miles beyond the boundary, and the only 

 impediment to their farther extension seems to be the scarcity of 

 water, of which the more remote country is almost destitute. 



The country about Wellington becomes almost impassable during 

 heavy rains, for the waters are then so much swelled as to put a stop 

 to travelling. Mr. Hale was detained a week from this cause ; and at 

 Wellington, the Macquarie, which was before only a string of pools, 

 became a large river, flowing with a rapid current ; yet at a distance 

 of twenty miles farther down, it had ceased to flow, thus exhibiting 

 the phenomenon of a large stream losing itself. This remarkable 

 circumstance is usually ascribed to the many dry pools it has to fill 

 on its route, each of which must be overflowing before there can be 

 any farther current ; but this is hardly sufficient to account for the 

 almost sudden disappearance of a body of water sixty feet wide and 

 two feet deep, flowing at the rate of three or four miles per hour. It 

 would seem more probable that water may make its way into some 

 of the vast caverns that are known to i exist in this limestone region. 



The population beyond the Blue Mountains amounts to ten thou- 

 sand, and it is supposed that there is little room for its farther increase, 

 as all the stations capable of supporting flocks are now occupied, and 

 as there is little or no chance for the extension of husbandry. Welling- 

 ton Valley, although it was considered when first discovered, as fitted 

 to be the granary of the district, has disappointed all such expectations; 

 and out of seven harvests which have occurred since the missionaries 

 commenced operations in it, six have wholly or partially failed. 



According to Mr. Hale, the number of languages in Australia has 

 been greatly exaggerated, and so far from every tribe having, as has 

 been asserted, a separate language, it appears that within the colony, 

 or from Port Macquarie on the north to Port Philip on the south, and 

 extending one hundred miles beyond Wellington to the west, com- 

 prising one-tenth of the whole continent, only six, or at most, eight 

 dialects are spoken, and that these are so similar in words and gram- 

 matical construction as to place their identity of origin beyond a doubt. 

 From some vocabularies of the language spoken at Swan River, it 

 appears that this similarity of words extends over the entire breadth 

 of the continent. On the other hand, at Port Essington and Melville 

 Island, on the northern coast, though the distance is not so great, the 



