The elevation of these mountains above the level of the sea, has not yet been determined; but I should imagine that it cannot exceed four thousand feet.  For the first ten or twelve miles they are tolerably well clothed with timber, and produce occasionally some middling pasture; but beyond this they are excessively barren, and are covered generally with a thick brush, interspersed here and there with a few miserable stunted gums.  They bear, in fact, a striking similarity, both in respect to their soil and productions, to the barren wastes on the coast of Port Jackson.  They are very rocky, but they want granite, the distinguishing characteristic of primitive mountains.  Sandstone thickly studded with quartz and a little freestone, are the only varieties which they offer; a circumstance the more singular, as the moment you descend into the low country beyond them, granite is the only sort of stone that is to be met with for upwards of two hundred miles.

For the whole of this distance to the westward of these mountains, the country abounds with the richest herbage, and is upon the whole tolerably well supplied with running water.  In the immediate vicinity of them there is a profusion of rivulets, which discharge themselves into the western river; or, as it is termed by the natives, the Warragambia, the main branch, as I have before observed, of the Hawkesbury.  From the moment, however, that the streams begin to take a western course, the want of water becomes more perceptible, and increases as you proceed into the interior, particularly in a south-west direction.

This large and fertile tract of country, is in general perfectly free from underwood; and in many places, is without any timber at all.  Bathurst Plains, for instance, where there is a commandant, a military depot, and some few settlers established, have been found by actual admeasurement, to contain upwards of sixty thousand acres, upon which there is scarcely a tree.  The whole of this western country, indeed, is much more open and free from timber than the best districts to the eastward of the Blue Mountains.

The depot at Bathurst Plains, is 180 miles distant from Sydney; and the road to it presents no impediment to waggons, but the descent from the mountains into the low country; and even this does not prevent the inhabitants from maintaining a regular intercourse with that town, and receiving from it all the supplies which they require.  The difficulty, however, of thus communicating with the capital, is such as to preclude this vast tract of country from assuming an agricultural character; except in as far as the raising of grain for a scanty population of shepherds and herdsmen, may entitle it to this denomination; since there are no navigable rivers, at all events for many hundred miles into the interior, and the difficulty and expence of a land-carriage across the Blue Mountains, will always prevent the inhabitants of that part of this vast western wilderness, which