large enough to contain twice the volume of water then in it, but it had
outer and more distant banks, the boundaries of the alluvial flats, to
confine it within certain limits, during the most violent floods, and to
prevent its inundating the country.

HAMILTON'S PLAINS.

With a view to examine the plain opposite to us, I directed our horses to
be taken across the river early in the morning, and after breakfast,
M'Leay and I swam across after them. We found the current strong, and
could not keep a direct line over the channel, but were carried below the
place at which we plunged in. We proceeded afterwards in a direction
W.S.W. across the plain for five or six miles, before we saw trees on the
opposite extremity, at a still greater distance. We thus found ourselves
in the centre of an area of from 26 to 30 miles. It appeared to be
perfectly level, though not really so. The soil upon it was good,
excepting in isolated spots, where it was sandy. Vegetation was scanty
upon it, but, on the whole, I should conclude that it was fitter for
agriculture than for grazing. For I think it very probable, that those
lands which lie hardening and bare in a state of nature, would produce
abundantly if broken up by the plough. I called this Hamilton's plains,
in remembrance of the surgeon of my regiment. The Morumbidgee forms its
N.E. boundary, and a creek rising on it, cuts off a third part on the
western side, and runs away from the river in a southerly direction. This
creek, even before it gets to the outskirts of the plains, assumes a
considerable size. Such a fact would argue that heavy rains fall in this
part of the interior, to cut out such a watercourse, or that the soil is
extremely loose; but I should think the former the most probable, since
the soil of this plain had a substratum of clay. I place our encampment on
the river in latitude 34 degrees 41 minutes 45 seconds S., and in East