INUNDATIONS.
It will be clearly seen how nearly this corresponds with what we observed about the same season on the banks of the Glenelg. I have therefore little doubt that the Fitzroy takes its origin from the same mountain chain, and that the inundations described by Captain Wickham originate in the causes which I have here assigned.
To demonstrate more clearly the similarity of character of these rivers with those of New South Wales I shall quote two passages from the British Colonies of Mr. Montgomery Martin, regarding the Hawkesbury and Hunter Rivers of that colony:
The Hawkesbury, which is a continuation of the Nepean River, after the junction of the latter with a considerable stream, called the Grose, issues from a remarkable cleft in the Blue Mountains in the vicinity of the beautiful town of Richmond, about forty miles from Sydney. Along the base of these mountains the Hawkesbury flows in a northerly direction, fed by numerous tributary mountain torrents, descending from narrow gorges, which, after heavy rains, cause the Hawkesbury to rise and overflow its banks as it approaches the sea. In one instance it rose near the town of Windsor ninety-seven feet above its ordinary level. Volume 4 page 257.
Again he says, page 258:
Hunter's River, about seventy miles to the northward of Port Jackson, disembogues into the sea at the harbour of Newcastle.
There are three branches to the Hunter, called the upper, the lower, and the middle: the two former are navigable for boats for about 120 miles, and the latter for about 200 miles; but the branches are all subject to sudden and terrific inundations owing to the rapid descent of torrents from the Blue Mountains.
MOUTH OF THE GLENELG.
In concluding my remarks on the rivers of the north-west I should state that Mr. Stokes, the surveyor of the Beagle, after a careful examination of the coast did not succeed in finding the mouth of the Glenelg; and he imagines that it has several openings, consisting of large mangrove creeks, which fall into Stokes Bay; whilst it is my impression that it will be found to run out somewhere between Camden Sound and Collier's Bay, and that by some accidental circumstance its mouth was missed. That it joins the sea in a considerable body I should infer from a shoal of porpoises having been seen high up the river, and from the rise and fall of tide, which was twenty feet at the direct distance of thirty miles from the coast.