NEW SOUTH WALES. 173 



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 erro- 

 neous, 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, consequently, 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, Morrumbidgee, 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 supposed, 

 it is swallowed up by the caverns in the limestone rocks. This is the 

 case with the Macquarie, which has its source near Bathurst. 



According to all accounts, salt is very generally diffused throughout 

 New South Wales, and even all Australia. It has been reported as 

 being found in masses in the sandstone, but no specimens of it were 



* 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. 



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