carry a boat safely down its channel, but as a navigable river at all seasons, it is, like the Macquarie, and indeed every other western stream, useless to the colonists. Even if the Murray were throughout the year, and during the driest seasons, a deep navigable river, its waters could not be rendered of use for the purposes of commerce, since it discharges itself into a shoal lake, and that again into the sea at Encounter Bay, where, although the passage is, as Captain Sturt states, 'at all periods of the tide, rather more than a quarter of a mile in width, and of sufficient depth for a boat to enter,' still, as he also observes, and the master of every coaster well knows, 'a line of dangerous breakers,' which are constantly rolling against the sand-bars thrown up by the prevalent winds, 'will always prevent an approach to the lake from the sea, excepting in the calmest weather; whilst the bay itself will at all times be a hazardous place for any vessel to enter under any circumstance.' The opinion also, which has been entertained, that a more practicable communication with the lake might be found from the Gulf of Saint Vincent is wholly gratuitous, for a reference to the voyage of Captain Flinders, who closely examined the shores of that deep bight, and an inspection of the chart of that able navigator, (the accuracy of which, generally, no seaman ever doubted who had sailed by it,) on which is laid down a range of wooded hills, extending from the promontory of Cape Jervis northerly, along the whole of the eastern shore of the gulf, are sufficient for us rather to entertain every doubt of the existence of such a channel of communication with the north-western bay of the lake, which is itself, in all probability, nothing else than an extensive mud-shoal[1].
I have now given the sum of our geographical knowledge of New South Wales up to the present period; and dividing the map of that vast country into seven equal parts, one division will fully include the tracks of all the journeys which have been undertaken since 1817, with a view to discovery, by Oxley, Sturt, Hovell and Hume, myself, and others; whilst the remaining six portions, which comprehend a great expanse of interior beyond the tropic, and the whole of the equinoctial part of the continent, continue, at this day, a vast region, entirely unknown. The want of navi-
- ↑ [Since Mr. Cunningham's observations on this subject were written, the Colonial Office has received accounts from New South Wales, which show that the expectations which were entertained by Captain Sturt of the existence of a communication between the Gulf of St. Vincent and the Lake Alexandrina were destitute of foundation. With the view of setting this question at rest, an accurate survey of the Lake was recently made by Captain Barker, an officer of the 39th regiment, on his return from King George's Sound, where he had been employed on detached duty; and it is a matter of sincere regret, that from an excess of zeal in geographical science, this enterprising officer should hare lost his life, in the prosecution of this object.]
