68 NOTES OF A JOURNEY ON THE DARLING. 
the general level of the Darling country, and being cut off from 
the higher land on the east by a long stretch of country from near 
the Bogan to beyond Gilgunnia, in which the older rocks come to 
the surface, it seems unlikely that there could be any unde 
When Mr. Russell first put forward the theory of an under- 
_ ground drainage system to explain the great disparity between the 
ground channels in all directions would in many places cut through 
the clay beds and form communications with the underground 
water, so that strong springs would be numerous in the Darling 
and its tributaries, but when one has examined the Darling and 
cut across and expose the edges, and the rivers themselves are 
little better than shallow gutters cut in the clay. ‘ 
The Mara Creek (which is the channel by which the Macquari¢ 
waters reach the Darling), the Namoi, Narran, Bokira, Culgoa 
rivers. ; 
no soakage of water from the rivers under the adjacent. county, 
inge, new 
: banks and flooded 
water in the well was not affected at all. On the Bogan, 
told of a well having been sunk in the bed of the river during 
dr ‘ought of 1877, to a depth of 40 feet, through perfectly ay 
thout finding any water, and in another part of the same™ 
