may at

nothing more than an insulated rock, which some time, and probably not at a time very remote, have stood detached in the sea. Cape Howe also stands among sandy shores; and though in the country to the south of Sydney, some of the high points on the coast be connected with the interior, yet none of them has the appearance of the beginning of a continuous ridge. The same is the case with the mountains that lie further north upon the east coast. It is the same with Cape York: that is not high itself, and the country to the south of it contains only hummocks of sand. The two points of the north coast, west of the Gulf of Carpentaria, are upon islands; and throughout the whole of that and the north-west coast, the hills that appear are evidently detached masses, and in many places they are, during the rainy season, insulated by the inunda tions. On the west coast, there are no better indications. North-west Cape is the termination of a sandy promontory, and the elevations between that and the Swan River appear to be merely hummocks running along the coast. Swan River itself, or Cape Leeuwin, give no more indication of an extent of either hill or valley. The south coast is still more puzzling. Where mountains appear, they seem to be insulated, and have not the least appearance of rising in elevation toward the centre of the country, as is usual in the other continents; then the five hundred miles of elevated coast in the very centre of the south, with the strata perfectly horizontal, is so

contrary to what is observed in other countries, that it darkens rather than explains. There are some instances in which the summits of the rocks and reefs that run out into the sea, determine the direction of the mountains, and thus afford a key to the internal geography of the country. But the reefs in the vicinity of New Holland are not of any such use. The reefs there have nothing to do with geology, they are not the effects of those mighty causes, affecting the mass of the globe, which have girdled Europe with the Alps, Africa with the Atlas, Asia with the Himmaleh, and America with the Andes. They spring from no such convulsion of nature as those which have spotted the Atlantic with many of its isles, and stretched the chain of the Sunda islands from Sumatra to Timor. They are the work of means equally wonderful, but much more humble,—they are built quietly under the sea by countless myriads of little insects. As will be more particularly explained afterwards, the coral insects build their little habitations, one generation above the ruins of another, till, from the depth of hundreds of fathoms, they reach the surface. Then another ridge follows; the sea fills up the chasms with broken coral, sand, and other marine remains, after which the reef is manured and planted by the birds, and in time becomes an island.

Thus the theory of the geography of New Holland cannot proceed one step beyond the details that have been proved by experience; and though

observation, where it has been made, is just as good with respect to the local parts in New Holland, as to any other place, it bars all inference. Where theory would lead the geographer to look for a river, there is a thirsty sand; and where he would, from the analogy of other countries, expect a mountain, there is a marsh.

Of the whole 7,750 miles, which, by a rude calculation, form the shores of New Holland, the rivers that have been discovered, or that, to all appearance, are discoverable, running towards the sea, are confined to a very small portion, not exceeding five hundred miles; that is, from Shoal Haven in the south, to Moreton Bay in the north; and the sources of those rivers, where they have been traced, are so circuitous and crooked, that they are of little use in communicating an idea, either of the general character, or the general shape of the countries. These rivers are:

1. Shoal Water River, which has its source about thirty miles from the coast, and sixty southward of its mouth, and after a course of about one hundred miles, falls into Shoal Haven. The upper part of the course of that river appears to be a valley with a ridge of mountains on the east, and a still higher ridge on the west. This last stretches northward to elevated plains, from the summit of which the country may be traced northwards through the colony. The rivers that fall into Botany Bay and Port Jackson are of very trifling dimen

sions, and instead of rising in the central ridge of the colony, have two lower summits between their sources and that.

2. The Hawksbury, which falls into Broken Bay, is the second river in order. It rises near Lake George, runs for some time parallel to Shoal Haven River, and its course is very circuitous and crooked: probably its length is about two hundred miles. It gets several names: at its source it is the Walandilly, then the Warragumba, next the Nepean, and lastly the Hawksbury. Westward of this river, while its general course is northward, the Blue Mountains are abrupt on their eastern side, and the direction of the ridge is nearly north and south, Northward of the Hawksbury, the Caermarthen Mountains stretch from the central chain eastward to the coast, and divide the districts watered by the Hawksbury from those watered by

3. Hunter's River. There are three principal branches of this river; Paterson's from the west, and William's and Hunter's from the north. Their courses have not been so traced that they can be connected with the branches in the interior, that appear to flow towards them; but it is by no means improbable that these three rivers will be found to divide the waters of a country about one hundred and twenty miles long from east to west, and one hundred broad from north to south, great part of which is cleared of wood, immediately fit for grazing, and very susceptible of tillage. Between the rivers

that probably flow eastward to Paterson's River, and those that flow westward to the Macquarrie, there does not appear to be a definite ridge of mountains, but merely a summit level where the waters divide; and thus, in this part of the country, there is in all probability a valuable tract extending from the sea to between two hundred and three hundred miles.

4. The Hasting's River, which falls into Port Macquarrie, is probably not so large as the former, taking all the three branches. It flows through a very mountainous country. Sea View Hill, at the distance of about fifty miles from the sea, where nearest, is about six thousand feet high, and is the most elevated peak hitherto measured in the country. Between this river and the former, there are several others of inferior dimensions. On the northward of the ridge, in the south side of which the several branches that are supposed to discharge themselves into the Paterson have their sources, many rivers have been discovered flowing in the opposite direction, some of which, even during the short portion of their probable courses that they have been traced, are of considerable magnitude. Of these, the ones farthest into the interior, and which may be supposed to be within the summit level, probably are lost in a continuation of the reedy marsh, beyond which the Macquarrie could not be traced; and those that are on the east side of the summit, may discharge themselves into lagoons behind the sandy beaches on the coast that have not been completely