- The day proved as favourable as could be wished, and the
observations placed our situation in lat.
32. 32. 45. S., and our
compared long. 148. 51. 30. E., the variation of the needle being
8. 38. 38. E. A valuable discovery was made in the course of the day by
the men who were out with the dogs, the hills bounding the east side of
Wellington Vale being found of the purest limestone, of precisely
similar quality with that found at Limestone Creek. We were never due
north of that place, and it is more than probable that the same stratum
extends on the same meridian through the country.
August 21 - At eight o'clock, accompanied by Mr. Evans and
Mr. Cunningham, set out on our intended excursion down the Macquarie
River. Crossing Bell's River in the valley, we came in a mile to where
the steep rocky hills forming the west side of the vale advance their
perpendicular cliffs directly over the river. These hills we soon
rounded, and entered the vale north of them: I shall not in this place
attempt to describe the rich and beautiful country that opened to our
view in every direction. Alternate fine grazing hills, fertile flats and
valleys, formed its general outline; whilst the river, an object to us
of peculiar interest, was sometimes contracted to a width of from sixty
to eighty feet between rocky cliffs of vast perpendicular height, and
again expanded into noble and magnificent reaches of the width of at
least two hundred feet, washing some of the richest tracts of land that
can be found in any country; the banks were in those reaches low and
shelving, and covered with pebbles, whilst even at the highest floods
secondary banks restrained the river from doing the smallest damage:
these secondary banks might be from six to eight hundred feet in width,
and I think the highest marks of flood did not exceed twenty feet
perpendicular.
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