OXLKV OX THK LACHLAN AXI> MACQUARIE RIVERS. 450 rising waters endangered the lives of the party, Oxley » turned aside, steering for the sonfch-west, in hope of reaeh- iiig Cape Northumberland. He had run risk from flood. He was to endure thirst. The country between theLachlan and the Murrumhidgee was parched ; water was scarce ; and some of the liorses perished. He was but a few miles from the Murrunibidgee, and had he then persevered he would have reached it with far less difficult}^ than he encountered in turning back to the Lachlao. But he had to save the lives of his party, and could not snrmise that withie a few miles of him on the souths ran a larger river than the deceptive Lachlan whose I marshes had defied him on the north. He turned back, and I regaining the Lachlan, followed its course downwards, until I the spreading of its waters made him resolve to close his explorations altogether. He denounced the coiuitry as
- ' useless for the purposes of civilized men ;*' inferred, and
not unjustl}', that the Laclilan itself, unfed by affluents, must either he dry or become **a chain of ponds" in summer, and recorded his opinion that the low sandy hills on the south-western coast line were the only barriers which jjrevent the ocean from extending over a country which was probably once under its dominion." His last effort was to take three men for a final attempt to solve the mystery of the Lachlan waters. Returning from a point in latitude 33.57-30, longitude 144.31.15, he diverged from I the Lachlan to the north-east, and after cutting bis way successfully through a belt of mallee scrub (etfralifptKg dnmimt) struck upon the Macquarie river, near a place he called Wellington Valley, and returned to Bathursti through a country which he described as beautiful and fertile. His narrative, though discouraging as to the Lachlan, was tempting as regarded the Macf|uarie. He was sent again in May 1818 to explore that river. Like the Lachlan it deceived liim. He concluded that both rivers ran into **an inland sea or lake, gradually filling up by immense deposi- tions from the higher lands left by the waters which flow into it. It is most singular that the high lands on this continent seem to be confined to the sea-coast, or not to » extend to any gi^eat distance from it." ^nable to follow where the river couVA tiq» ^t^^^xn^
