14 NOTES BY THE EDITOR 



fair prospect of success for any future explorer. He say, "Its direction 

 continued to the southward, and far away could be traced the glistening 

 green valleys of its course, as it flowed on in undiminished magnitude ; ' 

 and his last " regretful view," as he describes it, was taken in lat. 15 86', 

 long. 130 E., at a distance of 140 miles from the sea. As yet, however, 

 no explorer has successfully passed over the coast range to the south, 

 where Mr. Haug hopes to find large grassy fields extending far towards the 

 interior. Dr. Blundell thinks that the hitherto so greatly dreaded " Cen- 

 tral Desert" of this strange continent may ultimately prove to be no desert 

 at all:, for desert and fertile spots border each other so closely in Australia as 

 to make that circumstance one of the most striking peculiarities of the land. 

 The expedition may thus not only hope to solve the mystery of the interior 

 of Australia; but traversing, as it proposes to do, the only hitherto great 

 unknown portion of the continent, it will at any rate furnish the means of 

 making a rough map of the whole, determining to the colonists of the 

 eastern, southern, and western provinces whether or not the interior is to 

 remain to them and to the rest of the world an impassable territory and ' ' a 

 sealed book." 



Dr. Sutherland, who was attached to the Arctic Expedition under Capt. 

 Penny, in 1851, is about to undertake a journey of exploration in South- 

 eastern Africa, under the auspices of the London Geographical Society. 



Dr. Harvey, the well-known Botanist of Dublin, is also about to visit 

 Australia, under the joint auspices of the University and of the lloyal 

 Dublin Society, for the purpose of exploring the natural history of the 

 southern coasts of that continent. Dr. H. will give especial attention to 

 the collection of Marine Algce, and will be absent until 1855. He also 

 proposes various subscription sets of Algse, at the rate of 21. 5s. per 100 

 species, properly prepared and delivered in Europe. 



Accounts have reached the French government that M. Emile Devile 

 and M. Duret, two of the gentlemen employed by it to explore the central 

 parts of South America, have been carried off by the yellow fever at Rio 

 Janeiro ; M. Lefebvre Durufle, the third member of the expedition, 

 though attacked with the malady, escaped. The loss of M. Devile is 

 a great one ; as, though extremely young, he was well known for his 

 attainments in natural history and other branches of science, and as a very 

 enterprising traveller. He was, in fact, the very man that could be wished 

 for to explore the immense centre of the South American continent, which 

 is at present as little, if not less known than the central parts of Africa. 



Dispatches have reached her Majesty's government from the expedition 

 now conducted by Drs. Earth and Vogel in two different parts of Inner 

 Africa, the former pushing his way towards Timbuctoo, the latter to Lake 

 Tsad, to supply the vacancy left by the death of Dr. Overweg, and to com- 



