Atlas Page 12
By Alexander Sutherland,
R. von Lendenfeldt and Francis Meyers

THE river system of this colony divides itself naturally into two parts —namely, the eastern and western flowing waters. All the rivers take their rise in some part of the great cordillera range, which runs roughly parallel with the coast, though at a distance varying from thirty to one hundred and fifty miles. Throughout its whole length this range constitutes the big Divide, the water falling its eastern slope flowing to the sea, and that on the western side going into the Murray. The division of the colony thus made is very unequal in area, three-fourths of it lying to the west of the main range. The whole of the surplus rainfall on the inland area drains into the Murray at Wentworth, its principal tributaries being the Upper Murray, the Murrumbidgee, the Lachlan, and the Darling. The last-named has some of its sources in Queensland, and the whole basin thus drained is estimated at one hundred and ninety-eight thousand square miles. The area is vast enough to fill a Mississippi or an Amazon, and yet so uncertain and occasionally so scanty is the rainfall, and so great is the ground that the Murray at its outlet into Lake Alexandrina is not really a large river. Careful calculations have shewn that there is carried to the sea only a small fraction of the rainfall; the rest soaks into the soil, and when in excess finds its way to the coasts by underground channels. Persevering efforts are now being made to tap these subterranean supplies.

The Murray, which is the southernmost of the western rivers of New South Wales, takes its rise near Mount Kosciusko in the Muniong Range of the Australian Alps, and from the source of its tributary the Indi, to Chowella below the junction of the Darling, it forms the boundary of New South Wales. It is occasionally navigable as far as Albury, when the river is in flood from heavy rains, or the melting of the snow on the Alps; but practically Echuca is the head of the navigation. This river was first opened to commerce by Captain Cadell, who, tempted by a bonus offered by the South Australian Government, built the "Lady Augusta" in Sydney, navigated her round the coast, took her over the dangerous bar at the mouth, and ascended the river as far as Swan Hill.

The Murrumbidgee, the next river to the north, also takes its rise in the Australian Alps, not very far from the source of the Murray, and it drains the greater part of the north-lying slopes of that mountain mass. The various streams, which flow north for a time, turning to the west, unite to form the Murrumbidgee which then runs westerly till it joins the Lachlan at Nap Nap. Its drainage area is estimated at twenty-five thousand square miles. It is occasionally navigable as far as Gundagai but steamers seldom go beyond Wagga Wagga, and the water-transit is now largely superseded by the railway.

Next in order to the north is the Lachlan River, its principal sources being in the ranges between Goulburn and Bathurst. This river is hardly at all navigable, but it drains a basin of twenty-seven thousand square miles.

The Darling drains the western rainfall from Bathurst to the northern boundary of the colony, its principal tributaries —the Bogan, the Macquarie, and the Castlereagh —run for a considerable distance north-west, and this greatly puzzled the early explorers, who thought they had found the sources of some river that would empty itself on the northern coast, and it was no little disappointment to find that all these streams converged into the channel of the Darling running to the south-west. The general system of the western watershed, therefore, roughly resembles the shape of an outspread hand, the wrist being the outlet, and the fingers the great feeders. All these branches have picturesque reaches at the beginning, where they are falling from the hills; but once out upon the plains, they have but few tributaries —they zig-zag slowly across the level country, their course being generally marked by a thin fringe of stunted gum trees. They are welcome enough to the thirsty traveller, and the water-frontages are highly prized by stockowners, but they present little to charm an artist’s eye.

When the waters are up, there is something picturesque in the steamboats puffing along through the tree groves with tremendous noise and stir; by day darkening the soft blue of the sky with smoke, and by night, belching meteoric showers of sparks from their funnels, and throwing long rays from their powerful lamps into the weird and silent darkness of the forest that fringes the river’s bank. Sometimes the waters are high enough for these steamers to disregard the channel, and cutting off the bends, to pass over the fallen tree-tops and sunken logs; but in ordinary seasons the navigation is most tortuous, and the risk of impalement on some of the innumerable snags that lie hidden in the channel is not inconsiderable. Along the plains the red gum is the principal river timber. On some rich flats, where the overflow has carried seeds, the marginal strip broadens to a riverside forest, in which some charming, vistas and. natural avenues may be found, the trees tall and well-crowned with dark-green foliage, but a few varieties of wattle are almost the only undergrowth. In the summer of a dry season, the Outlook over all the western country is monotonous in the extreme. Then the great rivers are shrunk to puny streams, and a man may wade across the Darling or swim across the Murray in half a dozen strokes; then the tributaries on the plains and back-blocks have ceased to run, the back-water creeks are covered with a brittle gauze of marsh-film, their courses being marked by only a fringe of stunted box-trees, and their disused channels shown by patches of bare sand or shingle, hot as the desert floor.

On the eastern watershed the character of the rivers is altogether different. Some of them are short, and make a straight and quick descent to the coast, their velocity being checked when they reach the narrow strip of plain, where they often form lagoons closed in by a sand-bar, through which, when their torrents are swollen, they force a passage to the sea.

The smaller streams to the north of Cape Howe are all very much of the same character —mountain torrents in wet weather, disconnected pools in dry, but nearly all watering a rich though narrow plain before their course is finished. The principal river to the south of Sydney is the Shoalhaven, which for a considerable distance runs northward, being forced in that direction by the secondary coast range; but turning to the east in the latitude of Goulburn, it cuts its way to the sea after a run of two hundred and sixty miles. The only considerable stream between that point and Sydney is the George’s River, which has also a northerly course for some distance, and turning to the east at Liverpool, finds its outlet at Botany Bay.

But north of Sydney is a noble stream which in its lower reaches is called the Hawkesbury. Some of its tributaries, rising as far south as Goulburn, are likewise forced into a northerly course by the secondary coastal range. The Nepean and the Nattai drain the western slope of the coast range, while the Warragamba, which joins the Wollondilly, drains the southern slopes of the Blue Mountains. The united waters go north as far as Wiseman’s Ferry, where they turn to the east, and find their outlet to the sea through Broken Bay. This river thus almost encircles the metropolitan county of Cumberland for some of the tributaries to the Nepean rise on the western slopes of the hill at the back of Wollongong, and it is from these streams running down in sandstone gorges that the water supply of Sydney is now obtained. At a lower point in the Nepean is the Camden district, to which the cattle that escaped from the first settlement betook themselves as the best grazing ground near Sydney. Lower down the river, from Penrith to Richmond and Windsor, is a broad valley with rich soil, a deposit from frequent floods, and this was the first agricultural land farmed by the early settlers. The river, therefore, which enfolds the metropolitan county as in its arm, is identified with the struggles of the young colony, and is still closely connected with the needs of Sydney. It gave the settlers their first rich pasturage; its banks were the scene of the first great wool-farm; its rich flats gave the first harvest; and the gorges in its upper reaches now give their daily supply of water to the city. Towards its mouth the Hawkesbury becomes romantic.

Forty miles to the north of the Hawkesbury is the mouth of the Hunter —a river which drains eight thousand square miles, and which is navigable as far as Morpeth, thirty miles inland. The great coal-shipping Port of Newcastle lies just inside the entrance. On both sides of the river the immediate, country is flat, and nearly all the way to Morpeth may be seen rich lucerne paddocks, yielding six crops a year, which make of this district the great hayfield of Sydney. This rich soil is the result of the alluvial deposit of centuries, and the ground is still from time to time enriched by floods. Above Maitland the river is tapped for the water-supply of all the townships between that point and the sea, and a quarter of a million sterling has already been expended in carrying out the necessary work of storage and distribution. The valley of the Upper Hunter is more undulating, but still richly grassed, and on prosperous farms and fine stations are to be found the children and grandchildren of some of the earliest settlers the colony knew.

North of the Hunter lie three rivers, the Hastings, the Manning, and the Macleay, which have much the same general character. They roll down from the slopes of the New England tableland, coming out of timbered mountains down to rich valleys, originally well stocked with cedars and pines, and across plains well adapted to prosperous agriculture, but whose development has been somewhat retarded by the badness of the harbours of the bar-mouthed rivers; the transit of produce being thus made difficult and expensive.

Farther to the north is the Clarence, a noble and navigable river. Notwithstanding a broad, difficult and shifting bar —which the engineers are busy reducing —large steamers enter the heads and ascend to the wharves of Grafton, forty-five miles from the sea. For a considerable stretch up the river there are low banks and sand shoals, and then come wooded isles, and fertile shores with frequent jetties; the smoke of many sugar-mills indicating that the rich lands are turned to a good account. It is hoped that the river may be rendered navigable for small craft as far as Solferino, one hundred arid thirty miles from the heads, from which point up to the tableland the ascent is steep; but notwithstanding this a projected line of railway has been surveyed.

Twenty miles to the north of the Clarence is the Richmond, springing out of Mount Lindsay, which also drains an area of rich land; but unfortunately its bar is worse than that of the Clarence River. Steamers, however, go in and out, though subject to many delays, making up to Lismore on one branch, and to Casino on the other. Among the lower reaches of the river the shores are flat, but on the upper waters there are many charming vistas, the overhanging foliage being of rare luxuriance. The Tweed is the most northerly river of the colony, rising in Mount Warning, and making a rapid course of thirty miles to the sea. The soil of the district is rich, and the vegetation most luxuriant; and, perhaps, no greater contrast is possible than the splendid vegetation of this well-watered country, and the arid districts on the western rivers we have previously described.

The lakes of New South Wales are neither numerous nor important. A great number of so-called lakes are merely salt-water estuaries formed by the inroads of the sea on softer portions of the, coast. To this class belong Lake Illawarra, Lake Macquarie, Lake Tuggerah, and several others. Some of the coast lakes are merely intercepted river outlets, banked up by sand bars. The fresh-water lakes are for the most part simply depressed surfaces, where the storm-water collects into lagoons. The Western plains are so level, and are so little drained by continuous creeks, that after heavy rains small shallow lakes of this kind abound. The squatters call them clay-pans, and plough channels into them, to collect as much water as possible, but they dry up under the heat of the summer sun. Some of the larger natural hollows are more permanent. Of these the most important is Lake George, which has, however, been dry within the last half century, and cattle have grazed over its bed. The lake area is singularly small in a country containing 311,078 square miles, or 199,090,217 acres —a tract of country more than half as large again as France, or five times the area of England and Wales.

At one time the term New South Wales was applied to the entire eastern half of the continent, but it is now used to designate only the colony lying between 28º and 37º south latitude, and the meridians of 141º and 154º east longitude. Taken diagonally, its greatest length is nine hundred miles, but its length due north and south is about six hundred and fifty; its greatest breadth is about seven hundred and sixty miles. Its eastern side is longer than its western, and in shape it is an irregular quadrangle. The colony of Queensland forms its northern boundary, from which it is separated by the Dumaresq River, the Dividing Range, and Macpherson’s Range. The Pacific Ocean bounds it on the east, and the colony of Victoria on the south, from which it is separated by an imaginary straight line from Cape Howe to the source of the Murray, thence by that river to the meridian of 141º east, which forms its western limit, separating it from the colony of South Australia.

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