the introduction of fresh sources of wealth.

GEOGRAPHICAL FEATURES.

Having taken this hasty review of the commercial interests of the colony,
we may now turn to a brief examination of its internal structure and
principal natural features.

I have already given a cursory sketch of the geographical features of the
whole continent. Of the vast area which its coasts embrace, the east part
alone has been fully explored.

A range of hills runs along the eastern coast, from north to south, which,
in different quarters, vary in their distance from the sea; at one place
approaching it pretty nearly, at another, receding from it to a distance
of forty miles. It is a singular fact, that there is no pass or break in
these mountains, by which any of the rivers of the interior can escape in
an easterly direction. Their spine is unbroken. The consequence is, that
there is a complete division of the eastern and western waters, and that
streams, the heads of which are close to each other, flow away in opposite
directions; the one to pursue a short course to the sea; the other to fall
into a level and depressed interior, the character of which will be
noticed in its proper place.

GREAT PROPORTION OF BAD SOIL.

The proportion of bad soil to that which is good in New South Wales, is
certainly very great: I mean the proportion of inferior soil to such as is
fit for the higher purposes of agriculture. Mr. Dawson, the late
superintendent of the Australian Agricultural Company's possessions, has
observed, as a singular fact, that the best soil generally prevails on the
summits of the hills, more especially where they are at all level. He
accounts for so unusual a circumstance by the fact, that elevated
positions are less subject to the effects of fire or floods than their
valleys or flanks, and attributes the general want of vegetable mould over
the colony chiefly to the ravages of the former element, whereby the
growth of underwood, so favourable in other countries to the formation of
soil, is wholly prevented. Undoubtedly this is a principal cause for the
deficiency in question. There is no part of the world in which fires
create such havoc as in New South Wales and indeed in Australia
generally. The climate, on the one hand, which dries up vegetation, and
the wandering habits of the natives on the other, which induce them to
clear the country before them by conflagration, operate equally against
the growth of timber and underwood.