Page:Australia, from Port Macquarie to Moreton Bay.djvu/99

 of 2045 statute miles, throughout which the elevation of its source, being 3500 feet above the level of the sea, would give its waters an average descent of 20 inches in each mile, supposing the bed of the river to be an inclined plane." Now the source of the Hastings is in 31° 50′ south latitude, instead of 33½°, and its longitude is 151° 50′ east, instead of 150° east, as Mr. Montgomery Martin avers; the length of its course also is scarcely more than one hundred miles, instead of 2045 statute miles. The cause of such great misrepresentation is this. In the history of Captain Sturt's expedition down the Macquarie river, which passes through Bathurst, that enterprising traveller made some observations respecting the length of the course of that river, and the average fall of its waters. Mr, Montgomery Martin, unaccountably confounding the Hastings river with the Macquarie, (although their sources are two hundred miles distant from each other, and their courses in opposite directions,) copied Captain Sturt's remarks on the Macquarie, and applied them to the Hastings; also giving to the source of the latter river, the latitude and longitude of the source of the former.

There are many errors of a more trivial nature in Mr. Montgomery Martin's work, which however cannot fail of striking any person who has resided some time in the colony; thus, for instance, in his description of the X. arborea or Grass-tree, he remarks that "from the centre of the leaves springs