2S4 NEW SOUTH WALES. 



through the paths extremely cautious, particularly as their small size 

 and grassy colour render them difficult to be seen. 



Among the distinguished gentlemen of the colony, to whose hospi- 

 tality our naturalists were indebted, is John Blaxland, Esq., who 

 resides at Newington, on the river, near Paramatta. The ladies of 

 his family are in possession of a handsome hortus siccus of native 

 plants, collected and prepared by themselves. 



A part of this gentleman's estate consists of extensive salt-works, 

 formed by drawing the tide-water from the river into ponds. In these 

 it is evaporated as much as possible by the heat of the sun, and is 

 afterwards boiled. The quantity of salt made at these works during 

 the preceding year (1838) was one thousand tons. About seventy 

 assigned servants (convicts) are employed in the manufacture. 



The water from the ocean is far from being the only source of this 

 necessary of life in Australia. Salt springs are abundant, and almost 

 all the wells, particularly those of the sandstone region, are said to 

 afford only brackish water. The small streams, and in dry seasons 

 even the rivers, are found to be salt ; and there is hardly a traveller or 

 navigator, but has given an account of his disappointment, in finding 

 salt water, when every indication gave the promise of fresh. 



Major Mitchell attributes the occasional saltness of the Darling 

 river, to salt springs, or to its passing through beds of rock salt. This 

 river, as has been stated, has no tributary for more than six hundred 

 miles, and has at times little or no current ; and it is where the stream 

 has no sensible motion, that the saltness is most marked. The salt 

 appears to cover but a small area at any one place, and it has been 

 observed that within a short distance of each other, fresh and salt 

 rivulets may be seen, pursuing the same direction, and each retaining 

 its character throughout its whole course. 



The lakes in the eastern section of Australia are also nearly all 

 either salt or brackish. Lake George, situated beyond Goulburn, 

 near the source of the Yass river, which empties into the Murrum- 

 bidgee, is the largest of these lakes. It is at present only five or six 

 miles in length, by about four in width, although, according to un- 

 questionable authority, it was, within twelve or fourteen years, sixteen 

 miles long by twelve wide. Lake Bathurst, which is not far distant 

 from Lake George, has also undergone a similar diminution. In the 

 latter lake there are to be seen stumps of trees, which prove, that 

 although within a few years a considerable lake, and at present 

 decreasing in its extent, it had at a former, and that at no remote 



