MR. oxi.ey’s opinions. 157 
would have to flow 2020 miles, its elevated sources giving 
to each a mean fall of seventeen inches. 
“ Dumaresq’s river falling 2970 feet from granite moun- 
tains, in 28|“ under the meridian of 152", would have to 
pursue its course for 2969 miles, its average fall being 
eio;hteen inches to a mile.” 
As I have never been upon the banks either of the Gwy- 
dir or the Dumaresq, I cannot speak of those two rivers ; 
but in estimating the sources of the Macquarie at 3500 feet 
above the level of the sea, Mr. Cunningham has lost sight 
of, or overlooked the fact, that the fall of its bed in the first 
two hundred miles, is more than 2800 feet, since the cata- 
ract, which is midway between Wellington Valley and the 
marshes, was ascertained by barometrical admeasurement, 
to be 680 feet only above the ocean. The country, there- 
fore, through which the Macquarie would have to flow 
durine: the remainder of its course of 1700 miles, in order to 
gain the N.W. coast, would not be a gradually inclined plain, 
but for the most part a dead level, and the fact of its failure 
is a sufficient proof in itself how short the course of a river 
so circumstanced must necessarily be. 
Having conversed frequently with Mr. Oxley on the sub- 
ject of his expeditions, I went into the interior preposessed 
in favour of his opinions, nor do I think he could have 
drawn any other conclusion than that which he did, from 
his experience of the terminations of the rivers whose 
courses he explored. Had Mr. Oxley advanced forty, or 
even thirty miles, farther than he did, to the westward of 
