e. From
our position off Cape Frankland, we carried a line of soundings across
the passage south of Craggy Island, passing two miles to the eastward of
it in twenty-seven fathoms. We then ran out of the strait and up to
Sydney, to leave what stores were not absolutely required during the
passage to England, for the use of the ships on the station.

RAILROADS FROM SYDNEY.

Having spoken of the feasibility of railroads in other parts of New South
Wales, I cannot leave Sydney without suggesting what appear to me to be
the most practicable directions for lines leading from that capital. As
the country between Parramatta and Sydney is very hilly, I would
recommend that part of the journey should be performed in a steamer; and
that the railroad should commence on the right bank, about seven miles
from the town. An extension of this line would lead into the
north-western interior. Towards the south, and in the direction of the
Manero district, the line ought to pass round the head of Botany Bay, and
by following some of the valleys trending southwards, might reach nearly
to Illawarra, the garden of New South Wales. In this manner, the rich
Manero corn country, and the coalfields of Illawarra, might be brought
into connection with Sydney, and a prodigious development imparted to the
whole colony.

MORETON BAY.

I regretted being obliged to leave this part of Australia without
visiting Moreton Bay, as a survey of the mouth of the Brisbane River
would have enabled the settlers of that district, now rapidly increasing,
to have sent their produce direct from thence to England; whereas, until
a chart of it is published, masters of large ships do not like to go
there. The residents are in consequence obliged to submit to the expense
of first shipping their merchandise to Sydney. The Moreton Bay district
is perhaps one of the most fertile on the continent, combining the
advantages of great partial elevation and of proximity to the equator, so
that, within a comparatively short distance, the productions of both the
tropical and the temperate zones may be found. Corn grows on the high
plains; bananas, raisins, etc., on the lowlands; in short, as in Mexico,
the traveller finds, in ascending from the sea-coast to the summit of the
hills, almost the same successive gradations of climate as in passing
from the tropics towards the poles.

FAREWELL TO SYDNEY.

Our final arrangements were soon made; and on the 18th of February, the
Bea