NEW SOUTH WALES. 285 



epoch, been a marsh, if not actually dry land. Should its present 

 diminution continue, which must take place if the seasons of drought 

 are not interrupted, it will in a few years be again dry land.* 



The facts observed at these lakes prove in the most conclusive 

 manner the very great irregularity in the climate of New South 

 Wales. It would appear from them, that, however great the floods 

 now occasionally experienced are considered, those that have occurred 

 must have exceeded them, and filled the basins of these lakes, to 

 such a depth, that within the fifty years that they have been known, 

 the excess of evaporation has not been sufficient to restore them to 

 their pristine state. 



In conformity with the condition of these lakes, many places now 

 dry are pointed out, where, within the memory of the settlers, lakes 

 or ponds existed ; and near the course of streams, grass is to be seen 

 attached to the trunks of trees thirty feet above the present level of 

 the water, which must have been lodged there by very great floods. 



The great and important changes that floods of such extent and 

 destructive force must produce on the face of the country, may be 

 imagined, and particularly when like New South Wales it is princi- 

 pally composed of soft sandstone. To such causes may be ascribed 

 the numerous coves of the harbours and bays, and the deep ravines 

 which often break the monotony of the table-land. In relation to the 

 bays and coves, Major Mitchell remarks, that they generally have a 

 direction either from north-northeast to south-southwest, or from west- 

 northwest to east-southeast. Our o-eoloarist observed a coincidence of 

 the fissures of the sandstone rock with the same points of the com- 

 pass. This double and intersecting direction of the fissures, gives to 

 portions of the rock which are bare, the appearance of an artificial 

 pavement of enormous blocks. This appearance is well marked, and 

 can be readily observed in the variegated layers of the sandstone 

 cliffs near the Heads of Port Jackson. 



Earthquakes are occasionally felt in New South Wales. The 

 recorded accounts of these are necessarily imperfect ; they, however, 

 show that within the last fifty years, six are known to have occurred, 



* In the basins of the salt lakes of the interior, plants which grow on the shores of the 

 ocean are found in abundance ; as for instance the Salsola. These lakes even exceed 

 in saltness the waters of the ocean ; those brought by Major Mitchell, and analyzed, 

 contained one hundred and thirteen grains of dry salt in three ounces of water; the 

 specific gravity of the water was from 1-0386 to l - 0553. 



vol. ii. 72 



