d trees upon
the right bank, I stopped to ascend one, that, from an elevation, I might
survey the marsh, but I found it impossible to trace the river through it.
The country to the westward was covered with reeds, apparently to the
distance of seven miles; to the N.W. to a still greater distance; and to
the north they bounded the horizon.

The whole expanse was level and unbroken, but here and there the reeds
were higher and darker than at other places, as if they grew near constant
moisture; but I could see no appearance of water in any body, or of high
lands beyond the distant forest.

As soon as we arrived at the end of the main channel, we again got out of
the boat, and in pushing up the smaller one, soon found ourselves under a
dark arch of reeds. It did not, however, continue more than twenty yards
when it ceased, and I walked round the head of it as I had done round that
of the other. We then examined the space between the creeks, where the
bank receives the force of the current, which I did not doubt had formed
them by the separation of its eddies. Observing water among the reeds, I
pushed through them with infinite labour to a considerable distance. The
soil proved to be a stiff clay; the reeds were closely embodied, and from
ten to twelve feet high; the waters were in some places ankle deep, and in
others scarcely covered the surface. They were flowing in different
points, with greater speed than those of the river, which at once
convinced me that they were not permanent, but must have lodged in the
night during which so much rain had fallen. They ultimately appeared to
flow to the northward, but I found it impossible to follow them, and it
was not without difficulty that, after having wandered about at every
point of the compass, I again reached the boat.

CAUSES OF THE FAILURE OF THE RIVER.

The care with which I had noted every change that took place in the
Macquarie, from Wellington Valley downwards, enabled me, in some measure,
to account for its present features. I was led to conclude that the waters
of the river being so small in body, excepting in times of flood, and
flowing for so many miles through a level country without receiving any
tributary to support their first impulse, became too sluggish, long ere
they reached the marshes, to cleave through so formidable a barrier; and
consequently spread over the surrounding country--whether again to take
up the character of a river, we had still to dete