Nov. 12, 1855.] CLARKE. STUKT. 6 



2. Extract of a Letter from the Rev. W. B. Clarke, f.u.g.s,, to the 



Secretary, 



St. Leonard's, N. S. Wales, June I, 1855. 



I HAVE had a conversation with Mr. Baines, the artist to the North 

 Australian Expedition, and have recommended him to visit several places 

 iji this part of the colony, that he may be able to recognize similar forma- 

 tions in the N. W., and I will give him every information in my power to 

 assist his views. I think it a pity that two of the party (in case of the 

 artist's death) had not been familiar with the use of the photographic 

 apparatus. 



We have had a very unusual season, and all the phenomena indicate a 

 'period in the climate. I'he ice has reached a lower latitude than ever was 

 known, and the sea has been blocked up with it. In 1854 I wrote a note 

 to Captain Hall of the ' Croesus,' and also informed the Captain of the ' Lady 

 Jocelyn' of the necessity there would be for caution respecting ice. I 

 founded my expectations upon certain calculations from observed phenomena 

 during long antecedent periods, and I find they were correct. Presuming 

 upon the idea of periodical affections of the earth's general organism (a 

 question which I took up many years since in Loudon's Mag. Nat. Hist,), 

 1 imagine the cold of your last English winter was connected with the dis- 

 engagement previously of ice from the Arctic coasts, as our cold here in 1854 

 was, doubtless, with that of the ice from the Antarctic shores. 



3. Extract of a Letter from Capt. Sturt, f.r.g.s., to Dr. Shaw. 



Cheltenham, Oct. 22. 



By the last mails I received letters from Messrs. Gregory and Baines, of the 

 North Australian Expedition, and I therefore lose no time in letting you 

 know how the Expedition is getting on. The whole of the staff were to 

 leave Sydney on the 15th of July for Moreton Bay, where the younger Mr. 

 Gregory has been for some time employed organising the party and pur- 

 chasing stock. Mr. Gregory writes to say that as he feared the prevalence 

 of the poisonous herb " Lobelia " in the northern parts of the continent, he 

 had decided in taking all horses, 50 in number. Two vessels convey him and 

 his party to the Victoria, and he proposes, as I suggested, trying to pene- 

 trate into Central Western Australia, and then returning to the Victoria for 

 fresh supplies, which, under the change, is all right. He will then cross to 

 the Gulf of Carpentaria and try to unite his own line with that of Mitchell's 

 Victoria ; bat the truth is, his movements will depend on what kind of country 

 he may find, and we shall have intelligence of him before he commences 

 the second portion of his journey. 



I suppose the Expedition is now high up Stokes's Victoria, and we may 

 soon learn how and with what prospects they left the coast. I shall watch 

 their progress with intense interest, and you may depend on it I will let you 

 know everything that I hear. 



Sir R. Murchison, in referring to the interest the Society had taken 

 in originating and promoting this Expedition, pointed out its proposed 

 course from Moreton Bay by sea to the mouth of the Victoria River 

 on the North- West Coast. It was intended to ascend that river to its 

 source, and to determine the boundaries of tlie tract of land wliose 



