August 3.--A bleak cold morning, with continued small rain. At day-light we set to work with our raft: and after many trials had the satisfaction to find that we should succeed in getting over our baggage. Whilst Mr. Evans superintended this work, I rode up the river with Byrne to see the branch: I found it but an inconsiderable one, being merely a lagoon, except in times of flood like the present, when it appears nearly as large as the parent stream; it forms an island ten or twelve miles long, and from two to four broad. The impossibility of our travelling up this side was demonstrated, as well as the nature of these lower grounds or clear plains, which retain all the water that falls upon them, the little inequalities forming shallow pools. It was much better travelling over them, than on a low ridge of hills a couple of miles from the river on which I returned; the soil of the latter being so loose and boggy as to render it difficult for the horses to proceed. On my return I found considerable progress had been made in transporting our luggage, and by four o'clock every thing was safely crossed; our little bark was however completely water logged, and at last would scarcely support a single man, though when first launched, three or four might venture in her with safety. As I think the state of the seasons in New South Wales may serve to explain, at least partially, why there are no running streams in the western parts of it, it may be worth while to make some little inquiry into that subject. It appears to me that it can never rain simultaneously westward of the Blue Mountains and on the coast, for these reasons: first, That the Lachlan and Macquarie Rivers, being the sole channels by which the waters falling on the Blue Mountain range are conveyed westward to the low-lands, are always flooded in times of great rains in those mountains and on the coast; secondly, that the winter, that is to say, the period between March and August, is the time when the rains are most to be expected, and have most generally fallen on the east coast, and which so falling would naturally cause a flood in the streams above mentioned; thirdly, that in the summer season, or from September to February, which is certainly the driest period of the year, the rains fall westward of the Blue Mountains; but falling upon flat sandy land without any watercourses, do not in the smallest degree add to the waters of the Lachlan or Macquarie, which are then consequently in a state nearly if not entirely stagnant. 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