368 MR. GREGORY— ROYAL AWARDS. [May 25, 1857 



descend into the great eastern ocean. To the dividing high lands 

 he assigned the name of ' Newcastle Eange,' in honour of the Secre- 

 tary of State for the Colonies, who had sanctioned the expedition. 

 Eeaching the Burdekin, he followed that stream south-eastwards 

 to its junction with the Cape river of Leichhardt.* 



The next march showed the connection of the Suttor of Leich- 

 hardt with the Belyando of Mitchell ; then striking south-west from 

 the latter stream, Mr. Gregory skirted the Peak range, the extreme 

 point to which squatters have extended their dwellings, i. e. in 

 S. lat. 230 41' and E. long. 147° 50', or about 560 miles from the 

 head of the Gulf of Carpentaria. 



Whilst a great breadth of entirely sterile tracts, with only one in- 

 sulated rich spot on the river Eoper, prevails between the basin of the 

 Victoria on the north coast and the Gulf of Carpentaria, with occa- 

 sional poisonous plants, Mr. Gregory found nearly all the vast region 

 between the eastern side of the gulf and the northernmost station of 

 our settlers, to be more or less fertile. During the last weeks of 

 the expedition the horses fattened, and after traversing the rivers 

 Mackenzie, Comet, Dawson, and Burnett, the party reached the 

 Brisbane and Moreton Bay in excellent health. 



The value of the researches of Mr. Gregory and his associates 

 cannot be appreciated until all their records, and the general map, 

 now in course of compilation by Mr. Arrowsmith, shall have 

 been published ; although we already know how vastly our acquaint- 

 ance with the geographical distribution of plants has been en- 

 larged by the collections of Dr. Mueller.t In the mean time, how- 

 ever, the geographers of all countries will admit that we have 

 rightly awarded our Founder's Gold Medal to the successful ex- 

 plorer of such vast unknown lands, through which his united jour- 

 neys have amounted to upwards of 6500 miles, and in making which 

 he has determined man}^ points of longitude as well as latitude, and 

 has accurately defined the character of a fine basin of North Aus- 

 tralia, which may probably, at no distant day, become a British 

 colony, — a subject which will be particularly alluded to in the 

 discourse which follows. 



* It is my pleasing duty to state a fact which is in the highest degree credi- 

 table to Mr. Arrowsmith. That acute and indefatigable geographer, without any 

 other guide than his own comparison of somewliat discordant materials, had 

 placed upon his map the point of the confluence of the Burdekin and Cape Rivers, 

 or Mount M'Connell, at not more than ten miles in error of the precise longitude, 

 156^ 50' E,, determined by Gregory ; for the latitude only had been fixed by 

 Leichhardt, viz., S. lat. 26° 30'.— R. I. M. 



f See Sir W. Hooker's Journal of Botany. 



