This narrow entrance of the river, he thinks,
might be made navigable by ships of burthen, without difficulty or
great expense.
When the town begins to rise, and substantial buildings are required,
the blocks of stone procured by quarrying this entrance will go far
towards paying the expense of excavation.
Into this expansive sheet of water fall two rivers; one from the
north-east, which is properly the Swan River; the other from the
south-east, called Canning's River. Captain Stirling examined them both:
the former to its source, the latter beyond the point where the water
ceased to be brackish. They are both sufficiently convenient for boat
navigation, even at the end of the dry season; and any obstruction might
easily be removed to make them more so, by which the productions of an
immense extent of country might be transported by water-carriage.
Mr. Fraser remarks that nothing of the mangrove appears along the banks
of the Swan River, the usual situation of this plant being here occupied
by the genus Metrosideros.
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