on which we could effect a landing before dark.  I estimated, that during the day, we had gone about twenty-four miles, on nearly the same point of bearing as yesterday.  To assert, positively, that we were on the margin of the lake, or sea, into which this great body of water is discharged, might reasonably be deemed a conclusion, which has nothing but conjecture for its basis.  But if an opinion may be permitted to be hazarded from actual appearances, mine is decidedly in favour of our being in the immediate vicinity of an inland sea, or lake, most probably a shoal one, and gradually filling up by numerous depositions from the high lands, left by the waters which flow into it.  It is most singular, that the high lands on this continent seem to be confined to the sea-coast, and not to extend to any distance from it.”

Mr. Cunningham’s remarks.

In a work published at Sydney, containing an account of Mr. Allan Cunningham’s journey towards Moreton Bay, in 1828, the following remarks occur, from which it is evident Mr. Cunningham entertained Mr. Oxley’s views of the character and nature of the Western interior.  Towards the conclusion of the narrative, the author thus observes:—­

“Of the probable character of the distant unexplored interior, into which it has been ascertained all the rivers falling westerly from the dividing ranges flow, some inference may be drawn from the following data.

“Viewing, between the parallels of 34 degrees and 27 degrees, a vast area of depressed interior, subjected in seasons of prolonged rains to partial inundation, by a dispersion of the several waters that flow upon it from the eastern mountains whence they originate; and bearing in mind at the same time, that the declension of the country within the above parallels, as most decidedly shown by the dip of its several rivers, is uniformly to the N.N.W. and N.W., it would appear very conclusive, that either a portion of our distant interior is occupied by a lake of considerable magnitude, or that the confluence of those large streams, the Macquarie, Castlereagh, Gwydir, and the Dumaresq, with the many minor interfluent waters, which doubtless takes place upon those low levels, forms one or more noble rivers, which may flow across the continent by an almost imperceptible declivity of country to the north of north-west coasts, on certain parts of which, recent surveys have discovered to us extensive openings, by which the largest accumulations of waters might escape to the sea.”

Character of the rivers.

It is the characteristic of the streams falling westerly from the eastern, or coast ranges, to maintain a breadth of channel and a rapidity of current more immediately near their sources, that ill accords with their diminished size, and the sluggish flow of their waters in the more depressed interior.  In truth, neither the Macquarie nor the Castlereagh can strictly be considered as permanent rivers.  The last particularly is nothing more than a mountain torrent.  The Macquarie, although it at length ceased to run, kept up the appearance of a river to the very marshes; but the bed of the Castlereagh might have been crossed in many places without being noticed, nor did its channel contain so much water as was to be found on the neighbouring plains.