but also avoided the steepest hills.)

SHOALHAVEN RIVER.

The Shoalhaven river flows in a ravine about 1500 feet below the common
level of the country between it and the Wollondilly. Precipices
consisting at one part of granite and at another of limestone give a
peculiar grandeur to the scenery of the Shoalhaven river.

LIMESTONE CAVERNS THERE.

The limestone is of a dark grey colour and contains very imperfect
fragments of shells. We find among the features on these lofty riverbanks
many remarkable hollows not unaptly termed hoppers by the country people,
from the water sinking into them as grain subsides in the hopper of a
mill. As each of these hollows terminates in a crevice leading to a
cavern in the limestone below, I descended into one in 1828 and
penetrated without difficulty to a considerable depth over slimy rocks,
but was forced to return because our candles were nearly exhausted. A
current of air met us as we descended and it might have come from some
crevice probably near the bed of the river. That water sometimes flowed
into these caverns was evident from pieces of decayed trees which had
been carried downwards by it to a considerable depth. I looked in vain
there for fossil bones, but I found projecting from the side of the
cavern at the lowest part I reached a very perfect specimen of coral of
the genus favosites.

COUNTY OF ST. VINCENT.

The country to the eastward of the Shoalhaven river, that is to say
between it and the sea-coast, is very wild and mountainous. The higher
part including Currocbilly and the Pigeon house (summits) consists of
sandstone passing from a fine to a coarse grain, occasionally containing
pebbles of quartz, and in some of the varieties numerous specks of
decomposed felspar. The lower parts of the same country, according to the
rocks seen in Yalwal creek, consist of granite, basalt, and compact
felspar. Nearer the coast a friable whitish sandstone affords but a poor
soil, except where the partial occurrence of decomposed laminated felspar
and gneiss produced one somewhat better. This country comprises the
county of St. Vincent, bounded on one side by the Shoalhaven river and on
the other by the sea-coast. The southern portion of that county affords
the greatest quantity of soil available either for cultivation or
pasture; although around Bateman Bay, which is its limit on the south,
much good land cannot be expected as Snapper Island at the entrance
consists of grey compa