quired whether the coasts afford a safe means of judging of the country that lies inland, though there can be no question that they will be decisive of the utility of the country as respects its commercial value, and that is the principal light in which it must in the meantime be viewed.

Indeed,

as affects the immediate colonization, even as effects it or can affect it for many centuries, the general character of New Holland, does not need to be taken into the account, as enough that is abundantly fertile and sufficiently accessible has already been discovered, to meet any increase of population that can be calculated upon. Still, it were well that any points, upon all the coasts that are advantageously situated for colonies should be taken possession of, not only that the civilized inhabitants may all be one people, speaking one language, but that, in the event of a war, England may have no enemy in those seas, to harass her colonies, and destroy her commerce.

Any general account would not however be useful, or even intelligible without a previous knowledge of the details, which we shall accordingly collect and condense, beginning from Wilson's Promontory, and following the same rules as formerly in tracing the directions of the shores.

The whole of shore A, from Wilson's Promontory to Cape Howe, is a straight sandy beach; the ground behind it low, sandy and barren, with occasional stunted bushes, and without any fresh

water. Hills of considerable elevation are seen at the distance of sixty to eighty miles inland, but neither their character, nor that of the intermediate

country is known. From Cape Howe northward,

shore B for some distance retains its sterile character. It presents small hills of indurated clay, and beaches of sand. Two-fold Bay, about thirty miles north of Cape Howe, is the only inlet, and it is shallow, and ends in swamps. Behind the bay

there is a good deal of wood, and some land that might be cultivated, but it is not of good quality. The whole coast from Two-fold Bay northward, to Shoal Haven River, consists of an alternation of swamps, sandy beaches, and elevated points, the latter being composed of soft clay, slate, and indurated clay, or, when higher, of soft sandstone. There are some openings in the coast, but they are, in consequence of the bars across their entrances, accessible only by boats, and by those only in calm weather. The surface is stony and irregular, and though the soil in the ravines has the appearance of fertility, it is flooded to a great depth during the inundations. The country inland is mountainous; and there is nothing to invite settlers to this part of the shore.

Into Shoal Haven there falls a river of considerable magnitude, but the entrance is shallow and difficult, and the country for a considerable distance along the banks is very swampy.

The whole sea coast to the south of Shoal Haven

may be regarded as unfit for any useful purpose. The elevated points are rocky and sterile; and the lower surfaces are marshes, inundated during the rains, and many of them lagoons, at all times covered with salt water; and the beaches by which they are separated from the sea, appear to be bars which have progressively been raised by the joint action of the land floods and the tide. It is by no means improbable that this part of New South Wales is in a state of progressive improvement; and that the process by which the inlet of the sea has been changed into a detached lagoon, the lagoon into a marsh, and the marsh into an alluvial land occasionally flooded, may go on till the land be so elevated, as to project the water into the sea, by one channel of a continuous inclined plane, and so become fit for cultivation. But this, though a very probable, and indeed a very obvious process, is one with which man cannot interfere; and therefore all that he can do is to avail himself of those portions of the country which Nature has already made fit for his labour, and stand still and admire the progress of her handywork, in such situations as this. It is in this winning of new land from the ocean, that a knowledge of New Holland adds so much to the physical philosophy of the globe; and in the district from Cape Howe to Shoal Haven, we have an instance of one of those modes of operation, that—by the joint agency of the land floods and the eddy which sets northward from the projecting

mangrove,

to

points by the interruption of the southward current at these thus deposits, in the entrance the inlet, the débris which the land-flood brought down. Very often vegetation comes in aid of the forming land. The different species of trees known by the common name of which grow and propagate themselves in the shallow margins of the sea, gradually creep outward into that element, and thus form banks which are proof against the waves; but they add not to the valuable land, for behind the thicket of mangroves there is generally found a salt-marsh or a swamp; or if the flat land which they inclose, be in a climate sufficiently warm, and having a dry season sufficiently prolonged for evaporating the water behind the mangroves, the soil is totally arid and without vegetation, and generally, as we shall afterwards find when we examine the intertropical shores of Australia, covered with an incrustation of salt, which makes it seem to an European, as if the snow of Australia were proof against the burning influence of a tropical sun.

To the northward of Shoal Haven, the coast assumes a different character. It there rises up into lofty cliffs, composed chiefly of horizontal strata of sandstone, resting upon claystone, and exhibiting, in some places, beds of coal in the face of the beach. This lofty shore extends northward nearly to Botany Bay; the highland interior of it gets the name of Illawarra ; and it is pretty thickly covered with wood, chiefly a species of celestrina, the cedar of the colonists.

The same bold shore of sandstone cliffs extends considerably to the northward; in the course of it some of the best harbours, such as Botany Bay, Port Jackson, Broken Bay, and Port Hunter, are contained. The cliffs which form the outer heads at Port Jackson are very bold and precipitous; and the land within is so nearly of the same elevation, that it is not at all surprising that Captain Cook should have passed that excellent and extensive natural harbour, without the least suspicion of its existence. The number of coves or branches into which Port Jackson ramifies is very numerous; and as the country around is diversified in its surface, and, though not naturally very rich, yet susceptible of cultivation, and accessible by water to an immense extent, it is difficult to imagine a more advantageous situation than that of Sydney, both for foreign trade and domestic inter

course.

From Port Jackson to Broken Bay, the same bold shore of perpendicular cliffs of sandstone, dispersed in horizontal strata, still continues, though there it is occasionally broken by low beaches of sand, behind which there are salt marshes or lagoons. Broken Bay is even more ramified than Port Jackson, and the largest river in the south-eastern part of the colony falls into it, but it is not adapted for vessels, except those of small burden, though boats and lighters can proceed a considerable way into the interior, where the soil is much more fertile than towards the sea.