The noise and bustle of the house was quite refreshing to one who had dwelt so long in deserts, although it seemed to promise little accommodation, for there had been races in the neighbourhood and horses lay about the yard. Nevertheless the waiter and his wife cleared for my accommodation a room which had been full of noisy people, and my horses were soon lodged snugly in the stable. There indeed I perceived more room than the house afforded, for while the guests were regaling within their horses were allowed to lay about to starve outside, as if so many gypsies had been about the place; no uncommon circumstance in Australia. October 30. In the course of my ride this morning I recognised the poor scrubby land about the southern boundary of the county of Argyle, which I had surveyed in 1828. The wood on it is rather open, consisting of a stunted species of eucalyptus, the grass, apparently a hard species of poa, affording but little nourishment. Sandstone and quartz are the predominant rocks although some of the most remarkable hills consist of trap. BREDALBANE PLAINS. Passing at length through a gap in a low ridge of granular quartz, we entered upon Bredalbane plains, consisting of three open flats of grassy land circumscribed by hills of little apparent height, and extending about twelve miles in the direction of this road, their average width being about two miles. Deringullen ponds arise in the most southern plain, and are among the most eastern heads of the Lachlan. The plains are situated on the high dividing ground or water shed between the streams falling eastward and westward, and had probably once been lagoons of the same character as those which still distinguish other portions of this dividing ground. LAKE GEORGE. The most remarkable of these is Lake George, about fourteen miles further to the south, and which in 1828 was a sheet of water seventeen miles in length and seven in breadth. There is no outlet for the waters of this lake although it receives no less than four mountain streams from the hills north of it, namely Turallo creek, whose highest source is fourteen miles from the lake, Butmaro creek which arises in a mountain sixteen miles from it, Taylor's creek from the range on the east, six miles distant, and Kenny's creek from hills five miles distant. The southern shore of this lake presents one continuous low ridge, separating its waters from the head of the Yass river which would otherwise receive them. The water was slightly brackish in 1828 but quite fit for use, and the lake was then surrounded by dead trees of the eucalyptus measuring about two feet in diameter, which also extended into it until wholly covered by the water. In that wide expanse we could find no fish, and an old native female said she remembered when the whole was a forest, a statement supported pro tanto by the dead trees in its bed as well as by the whole of the basin being in October 1836 a grassy meadow not unlike the plains of Bredalbane.