Sir Thomas Mitchell, in his recently published “Journal of an Expedition into the interior of Tropical Australia,” has given a most vivid picture of the manner in which floods occasioned by distant rains fill the river-beds, and which I beg leave to transcribe. Sir Thomas being somewhat unwell while encamped on the banks of the Macquarie, the channel of which was deep and dry, sent Mr. Stephenson, one of his party, to Mount Foster, to make inquiries about the river and the stations on it lower down. Mr. Stephenson returned early with two of the mounted police. To his most important question, “What water was to be found lower down in the river, the reply was, ‘Plenty, and a _flood coming down_ from the Turòn mountains.’ The two policemen said that they had travelled twenty miles with it on the day previous, and that it would still take some time to arrive near our camp.... In the afternoon, two of the men taking a walk up the river, reported on their return, that the flood poured in upon them when in the river-bed so suddenly, that they narrowly escaped it. Still the bed of the Macquarie before our camp continued so dry and silent, that I could scarcely believe the flood coming to be real, and so near to us, who had been put to so many shifts for the want of water. Towards evening I stationed a man with a gun a little way up the river, with orders to fire on the flood’s appearance, that I might have time to run and witness what I so much wished to see, as well from curiosity as from urgent need. The shades of evening came, however, but no flood, and the man on the look-out returned to the camp. Some hours later, and after the moon had risen, a murmuring sound, like that of a distant waterfall, mingled with occasional cracks, as of breaking timber, drew our attention, and I hastened to the river-bank. By very slow degrees the sound grew louder, and at length so audible as to draw various persons besides from the camp to the river-side. Still no flood appeared, although its approach was indicated by the occasional rending of trees with a loud noise. Such a phænomenon in a most serene moonlight night was new to us all. At length the rushing sound of waters, and loud cracking of timber, announced that the flood was in the next bend. It rushed into our sight, glittering in the moonbeams, a moving cataract, tossing before it ancient trees, and snapping them against its banks. It was preceded by a point of meandering water, picking its way, like a thing of life, through the deepest parts of the dark, dry and shady bed, of what thus again became a flowing river. By my party, situated as we were at that time, beating about the country, and impeded in our journey solely by the almost total absence of water,—suffering excessively from thirst and extreme heat,—I am convinced the scene never can be forgotten. Here came at once abundance, the produce of storms in the far-off mountains that overlooked our homes.... The river gradually filled up the channel