CHARACTER OF AUSTRALIAN RIVERS. 
xm 
few days the delightful mildness of its climate. 
But the very spot which had appeared to Cap- 
tain Cook and Sir Joseph Banks an earthly para- 
dise, was abandoned by the early settlers as 
unfit for occupation ; nor has the country gene- 
rally been found to realize the sanguine expecta- 
tions of those distinguished individuals, so far as 
it has hitherto been explored. 
Rivers which have the widest mouths or the 
most practicable entrances, are,inEurope orAme- 
rica, usually of impetuous current, or else contain 
such a body of water as to bear down all opposi- 
tion to their free course ; whilst, on the other 
hand, rivers whose force is expended ere they 
reach the sea, have almost invariably a bar at 
their embouchure, or where they mingle their 
waters with those of the ocean. This last feature 
unfortunately appears to characterize all the 
rivers of Australia, or such of them at least 
as are sufficiently known to us. Falling rapidly 
from the mountains in which they originate 
into a level and extremely depressed country ; 
having weak and inconsiderable sources, and 
being almost wholly unaided by tributaries of 
any kind; they naturally fail before they reach 
the coast, and exhaust themselves in marshes 
