visible, opening from the southward into the valley of the Morumbidgee,
and, as a further evidence of a change of country from a confused to a
more open one, a plain of considerable size stretched from immediately
beneath the hill on which I was to the N.W.

GEOLOGY OF THE NEIGHBOURHOOD.

The Morumbidgee itself, from the length and regularity of its reaches, as
well as from its increased size, seemed to intimate that it had
successfully struggled through the broken country in which it rises, and
that it would henceforward meet with fewer interruptions to its course. It
still, however, preserved all the characters of a mountain stream; having
alternate rapids and deep pools, being in many places encumbered with
fallen timber, and generally running over a shingly bed, composed of
rounded fragments of every rock of which the neighbouring ranges were
formed, and many others that had been swept by the torrents down it. The
rock formation of the hills upon its right continued of that chlorite
schist which prevailed near Mr. Whaby's, which I have already noticed, and
quartz still appeared in large masses, on the loftier ranges opposite, so
that the geology of the neighbourhood could not be said to have undergone
any material change. It might, however, be considered an extraordinary
feature in it, that a small hill of blue limestone existed upon the left
bank of the river. The last place at which we had seen limestone was at
Yass, but I had learned from Mr. Whaby, that, together with whinstone, it
was abundant near a Mr. Rose's station on the Dumot, that was not at any
great distance. The irregularity, however, of the intervening country,
made the appearance of this solitary rock more singular.

Although the fires of the natives had been frequent upon the river, none
had, as yet, ventured to approach us, in consequence of some