224 
CONCLUDING REMARKS. 
Sydney, without any splendid discovery to gild its pro- 
ceedings ; and the labours and dangers it had encountered 
were considered as nothing more than ordinary occur- 
rences. If I myself had entertained hopes that my re- 
searches would have benefited the colony, I was wholly 
disappointed. There is a barren tract of country lying to 
the westward of the Blue Mountains that will ever divide 
the eastern coast from the more central parts of Australia, 
as completely as if seas actually rolled between them. 
In a geographical point of view, however, nothing could 
have been more satisfactory, excepting an absolute know- 
ledge of the country to the northward between the Murray 
and the Darling, than the results of the expedition. I 
have in its proper place stated, as fairly as I could, my 
reasons for supposing the principal junction (which I con- 
sequently left without a name) to be the Darling of my 
former journey, as well as the various arguments that bore 
against such a conclusion. 
Of course, where there is so much room for doubt, 
opinions will be various. I shall merely review the subject, 
in order to connect subsequent events with my previous 
observations, and to give the reader a full idea of that 
which struck me to be the case on a close and anxious 
investigation of the country from mountain to lowland. I 
returned from the Macquarie with doubts on my mind as 
to the ultimate direction to which the waters of the Darling 
river might ultimately flow ; for, with regard to every other 
point, the question was, I considered, wholly decided. But, 
