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APPENDIX. NO. V. 
we had as to the fate of the Macquarie, whose course we 
had been sent to trace. Indeed, had I not felt convinced 
that that river had ceased, I should not have moved west- 
ward without further examination, but we had passed 
through a very narrow part of the marshes, and round the 
greater part of them, and had not seen any hollow that 
that could by any possible exaggeration be construed into 
or mistaken for the channel of a river. 
It appears, then, that the Macquarie, flowing as it does 
for so many miles, through a bed, and not a declining coun- 
try, and having little water in it, except in times of flood, 
loses its impetus long ere it reaches the formidable barrier 
that opposes its progress northwards ; the soil in which 
the reeds grow being a stiflP clay. Its waters consequently 
spread, until a slight declivity giving them fresh impulse, 
they form a channel again, but soon gaining a level, they 
lose their force and their motion together, and spread not 
only over the second great marsh, but over a vast extent 
of the surrounding country, the breadth of ground thus 
subject to inundation being more than twenty miles, and 
its length considerably greater ; around this space there is 
a gentle rise which confines the waters, while small hol- 
lows in various directions lead them out of the marshes 
over the adjacent plains, on which they eventually subside. 
On my return from the interior, I examined those parts 
round which I had not been, with particular attention, 
partly in company with Mr. Hume, and this statement was 
confirmed by what we saw. Thus, at a distance of about 
twenty-five miles from Mount Foster to the N.N.W. the 
river Macquarie ceases to exist, in any shape as a river, 
and at a distance of between fifty and sixty, the marshes 
