It Is At This Season, Therefore, That These Streams Are Visited By The Natives, As They Are Then Enabled To Procure The Shell And Other Fish Which Abound In Them.

The tracks and impressions made by the feet of the natives were certainly made when the ground was very

Soft and marshy, whilst their guneahs were merely the branches of trees, and erected in places which we found to be swamps, but which in summer would, in comparison with the plains, be dry ground, the waters from them being drained off into the river.

The Blue Mountain range is by far the highest in New South Wales; the ranges westerly, though high when viewed from the low grounds from which they rise, cannot in any respect be compared with them.

In the summer, the north-east and south-east winds coming from the sea are forced over these mountains, and the vapours with which they are charged are attracted by the lower ranges westerly, and converted into rain. In the winter, the prevailing winds on the coast and inland, as is evident from the trees on the tops of the hills, are from south-west to north-west. In the winter, these westerly winds blowing over a vast extent of country, and coming with great violence on the Blue Mountains, confine those clouds and vapours which would occasion rain, to the vicinity of the coast, and the eastern side of the mountains. A wet summer on the east coast would occasion a flood in the Lachlan at that season; and should the rains then be attended with easterly winds, causing rain on the western side also, the whole low country must be under water for a double reason.

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