Page:The Present State and Prospects of the Port Phillip District of New South Wales.djvu/19

 employed in discharging the cargoes of merchantmen in the bay. The Yarra is subject to heavy floods in winter and spring, but at other times presents a very uniform appearance, the volume of its stream not apparently suffering much diminution during the drought of summer. It is supposed to rise in the spurs of the snowy Alps to the eastward of Melbourne; but the impracticable nature of the country in that direction has made the exact locality a matter of conjecture.

The country in the neighbourhood of Melbourne is very picturesque, though without any decidedly prominent features, the scenery being chiefly what is characterized by painters as woodland, and by the writers on this country as open forest. There is a good deal of it which is perfectly clear of timber; other parts are wooded about as thickly as the open parts of an English park; while in those most heavily timbered the trees are generally from about ten to thirty yards apart, with grass growing under them, and the ground perfectly free from brushwood of any kind, though flowering shrubs ore interspersed here and there. This is indeed the general character of the open forest-land, which occupies so large a portion of the district. Near the mouth of the river there is a belt of tea-tree scrub which borders it for a mile or two between Melbourne and the sea. On the south side of the Yarra the timber is thickest; from thence, in a north-westerly direction, the country gradually assumes a more open character; and at about four miles to the westward of Melbourne commence the plains, which, beginning about a mile beyond the Salt-water river, extend to the