"Admiring Nature in her wildest grace,"[* Burns.] it has ever been the most attractive of the author's duties to explore the interior of Australia. There the philosopher may look for facts; the painter and the poet for original studies and ideas; the naturalist for additional knowledge; and the historian might begin at a beginning. The traveller there seeks in vain for the remains of cities, temples, or towers; but he is amply compensated by objects that tell not of decay but of healthful progre

The exploration of Northern Australia, which formed the object of my first journey in 1831, has, consistently with the views I have always entertained on the subject [* See London Geographical Journal, vol. vii. part 2, p. 282.], been found equally essential in 1846 to the full development of the geographical resources of New South Wales. The same direction indicated on Mr. Arrowsmith's map, published by the Royal Geographical Society in 1837, was, in 1846, considered, by a committee of the Legi