May 25, 1857.J CLIMATE AND SOIL OF NORTH AUSTRALIA. 457 



1819,* and by Wickham and Stokes in 1839, the basin of the Vic- 

 toria was recently the scene of the encampment of Gregory, whence 

 he extended his researches southwards to the saline desert, and 

 eastwards to the Gulf of Carpentaria. The real opinion of such 

 an experienced colonist and geographer (whose merits have been 

 already dwelt upon in conferring upon him our Founder's Gold 

 Medal) is of infinitely greater value than those speculations 

 which would describe the whole of that region, on account of its 

 latitude, as unfit for the settlement of the Anglo-Saxon race ! The 

 plain answer to this view is, that on the banks of the navigable river 

 Victoria, the party of Wickham and Stokes were perfectly healthy 

 in 1839; and that recently our countrymen were stationed there 

 for nine months without the loss of a man. . Our medallist Mr. 

 Gregory, after a residence of many years in AVestern Australia, has 

 thus written to his friend, the former Governor of that province :f 

 "This portion of Australia far surpasses the western coast both in 

 its fertility and extent, and its capabilities for settlement. Good 

 harbours are numerous along the coast, and there is abundance of 

 fine country for stock and cultivation." Again, he says : " The 

 valley of the Victoria far exceeds the best parts of Western Australia 

 both in fertility and extent." 



Let us also hear what Dr. Ferdinand Mueller, the botanist of 

 the last expedition, says. This gentleman, who, by his Australian 

 researches, has, according to Sir W. Hooker, placed himself in the 

 front rank of botanists, having collected in tropical Australia about 

 1500 species of plants, of which 500 are new, thus writes to his 

 friend Mr. C. Latrobe, the former Lieut. -Governor of Victoria: — 

 *' North Australia, with the exception of the east coast, pos- 

 sesses essentially a dry Australian, and not a moist Indian climate. 

 Fevers do not therefore exist, and we escaped such jungles and swamps 

 as those in which Kennedy's party exhausted their strength. There 



* As these pages are passing through the press, my valued friend Dr. Fitton 

 called my attention to his Appendix to the Voyages of that admirable surveyor 

 the e'leve of Flinders, Capt. Philip P. King, along " Intertropical and Western 

 Australia" (182G). I have communicated the letter of this eminent geologist to 

 the Society, and the readers of our Journal will see in it an able eiFort to derive 

 generalizations from the examination of specimens collected by King and the 

 trend of the rock masses. 



These descriptions of King and Fitton should be compared with those of Grey 

 and Lushington, who in 1837 examined that portion of the north coast between 

 Prince Regent River and the Glenelg, and also with the more recent observations 

 of Mr. J. Beete Jukes, as given in his work entitled 'Sketch of the Physical 

 Structure of Australia' (1847). 



t Captain Fitz Gerald, b.n. 



