158 EXPLORATIONS IN SOUTH AUSTRALIA. [March 14, 1859. 



as, for example, governor of South Australia or of Victoria, or some equally- 

 important office, for he is assuredly most eminently qualified. I have in my 

 time read several books on Australia, and fear I have forgotten most of them. 

 Not so those of Captain Sturt, which no one that has perused them can ever 

 forget, for they make truth more interesting than fiction. 



The President. — These despatches are full of interesting anecdotes, which, 

 when published, will be read with great interest. 



(Here the President read two passages ; one regarding the natives, another 

 describing the habits of the emu.) 



Captain Stdrt. — I quite agree with our worthy President that such is the 

 case. The features of the country are such as to lead to that conclusion. I 

 cannot but think that the desert extended for hundreds of miles beyond where 

 I was at my extreme north. Its features were altogether on too large a scale 

 for me to suppose that they would speedily terminate or change, for notwithstand- 

 ing that the distance between Mr. Gregory's position and my own is so great as 

 700 miles, not only is the character of the country the same at both points, 

 but the vegetation is precisely the same also. Probably a better country than 

 either I or Gregory found, exists in the central portion of the great western 

 half of the continent, which has never yet been approached. 1 was in great 

 hopes that Mr. Gregory would have found that Sturt Creek, the creek he 

 traced south, either ran farther to the south, or that it terminated in a basin ; 

 but he found that, like all the central rivers of Australia, falling into a level 

 interior, it gradually lost its current, then assumed a chain of ponds, and was 

 ultimately lost by evaporation and absorption. Such is the general fate of 

 all the inland waters of the continent ; for which reason there is so much 

 difficulty in making sure of a supply of water in it. When I went into the 

 interior I never allowed my party to go on until I had made a day's journey 

 in advance and found water. Yet with all this caution I was cut off from 

 the possibility of a retreat at the depot, where I was locked up for six 

 months, and saw the water diminish day by day, from twelve feet to eleven 

 inches, when in ten days more, if rain had not fallen, there would not have 

 been a man of us alive ; fortunately, however, a fall of rain came from the 

 north-east, as in Stuart's case, like a dense fog, and in less than twenty-four 

 hours filled the creek to overflowing, which it liad taken six months to exhaust. 

 This drizzling rain lasted two days, and it was on the surface-water left by 

 it that I ventured to push on farther into the interior, drinking from shallow 

 puddles that the wind made as thick as mud, and sometimes water that was 

 perfectly loathsome. 



Professor Owen. — I would ask your permission to say a few words, 

 because I am in hopes that they may help a little towards increasing our 

 knowledge of the peculiar animals, especially the quadrupeds, which inhabit 

 the continent of Australia, respecting which we have just heard such new and 

 interesting information. By me, of course, the narrative of the remarkable 

 geographical discoveries in South Australia has been listened to chiefly in 

 anticipation of novel facts in zoology, and I will not disguise my disappoint- 

 ment at hearing mention made of only one small kangaroo-mouse. But your 

 estimable President has consoled me by intimating that the papers of Mr. 

 Macdougall Stuart contain a few other observations upon natural history sub- 

 jects. And yet one ought not to be surprised to hear so little about the native 

 quadrupeds from an Australian traveller, who was not expressly bent on 

 zoological collections. 



All the marsupial quadrupeds, and it is one of their curious peculiarities, 

 are nocturnal. Even the kangaroo, which is the least so, is scarcely ever seen 

 feeding out on the plains in broad daylight ; it prefers the early morning 

 dawn or the short twilight, and, above all, the Ijright moonlight nights. With 

 regard to most of the other Australian forms of marsupial animals, they are 



