(Footnote.  A name derived from rivulet, and a very good one, being short.)

VILLAGE RESERVE.

A wooden bridge has been erected across this stream and the site of a village marked out on the bank opposite it.  When such a spot has once been determined on for the establishment of a town or village, and divided into small allotments available to blacksmiths, wheelwrights, coopers, innkeepers, etc.  The land is no longer liable to be sold in a section of a square mile, according to the land regulations.  Much attention is necessary during the progress of colonisation to prevent the monopoly of the land in thoroughfares where water is to be had.  The convenience of the public and the encouragement of the mechanic, who is indeed the pioneer of colonists, cannot be sufficiently studied in affording facilities for the establishment of inns and the growth of population along great roads.

GRANITE FORMATION.

The aspect of this valley is very different from that of the mountain region, and equally so from that of the lower country on the Hawkesbury.  This change is obviously owing to the difference in the rock.  Granite appears here for the first time on this road; and we accordingly find those bold undulations and that thinly wooded surface which usually distinguish the formation in Australia.  It is at this point in general finely grained, but the felspar partly decomposed, with distinct crystals of felspar unchanged.

From the pass of Mount Victoria I travelled to Bathurst by an entirely new road, opened in a direction first recommended by me in 1827.

FARMER’S CREEK.

At fourteen miles from Mount Victoria is Farmer’s Creek, so named after a useful horse which fell there and broke his neck when I was surveying and marking out the line of road.  The formation of the descent to this mountain stream was a work of considerable labour, and at that time several gangs of prisoners in irons were employed upon it.

RIVER COX AND INTENDED BRIDGE.

Crossing Farmer’s Creek near its junction with Cox’s river the road is continued for one mile along the right bank, to the site chosen for throwing a bridge over this river.  The ascent on the opposite side has been cut, with unnecessary labour, through a point of the hill, and upon this the gangs were then at work.  The gangs of prisoners in irons were lodged in a stockade which had been erected here and was guarded by a detachment of the 17th regiment.  The river Cox is at this point 2,172 feet above the level of the sea.  It pursues its course through a wild inaccessible mountain country, and joins the Warragamba about twenty miles to the southward of Emu plains.  This course of the Cox could be traced by the surveyors only by scrambling on foot, or by following out the several extremities of the mountain ranges which abut upon its rocky channel.

MOUNT WALKER.

Mount Walker overlooks that part of the Cox which is crossed by the new line of road.  The summit of this hill consists of a dark grey felspar.  At its base and in the bed of the river is trap, which appears to be the principal rock of the country to some distance beyond the river.