how much the quality of the latter partakes of the character
of the rock on which it reposes. And although I find it extremely
difficult to explain myself as I should wish to do, in the critical
discussion on which I have thus entered, yet as it is material to the
elucidation of an important subject in the body of the work, I feel it
incumbent on me to proceed to the best of my ability.

I have said that the soil of a country depends much upon its geological
formation. This appears to be particularly the case in those parts of
the colony with which I am acquainted, or those lying between the
parallels of 30 degrees and 35 degrees south. Sandstone, porphyry, and
granite, succeed each other from the coast to a very considerable
distance into the interior, on a N. W. line. The light ferruginous dust
that is distributed over the county of Cumberland, and which annoys the
traveller by its extreme minuteness, to the eastward of the Blue
Mountains, is as different from the coarse gravelly soil on the
secondary ranges to the westward of them, as the barren scrubs and
thickly-wooded tracts of the former district are to the grassy and open
forests of the latter.

As soon as I began to descend to the westward it became necessary to
pay strict and earnest attention to the features of the country through
which I passed, in order to determine more accurately the different
appearances which, as I was led to expect, the rivers would assume. In
the course of my examination I found, first, that the broken country
through which I travelled, was generally covered with a loose, coarse,
and sandy soil; and, secondly, that the ranges were wholly deficient in
that peat formation which fills the valleys, or covers the flat summits
of the hills or mountains, in the northern hemisphere. The peculiar
property of this formation is to retain water like a sponge; and to
this property the regular and constant flow of the rivers descending
from such hills, may, in a great measure, be attributed. In New South
Wales on the contrary, the rains that fall upon the mountains drain
rapidly through a coarse and superficial soil, and pour down their
sides without a moment's interruption. The consequence is that on such
occasions the rivers are subject to great and sudden rises, whereas
they have scarcely water enough to support a current in ordinary
seasons. At one time the traveller will find it impracticable to cross
them: at another he may do so with ease;