May 23, 1859.] AUSTRALIA— GREGORY'S EXPEI>I-TION. 333 



British fanner, to a great extent, independent of the gnano of 

 Peru.* 



Australia, Tasmania, and New Zealand. 



Journey from Moreton Bay to South Australia, — The recent accessions 

 to our knowledge respecting the interior of Australia haTe been 

 large. Our medallist, Mr. Augustus Gregory, has performed a 

 most remarkable inland journey from Moreton Bay, in which, 

 though unsuccessful in discovering any relics of Leichhardt and his 

 party (the first object of the expedition), he was enabled to define 

 the nature of the interior of the continent from N.E. to S.W., and 

 to reach Adelaide in South Australia. Taking a north-westerly 

 course to the W.N.W. and N.W., he at first found abundance of 

 green grass, though he fears that in seasons of drought few of the 

 water-holes even at a moderate distance from the colony of Moreton 

 Bay, recently named " Queen's-land," are permanent. Tabular 

 sandstone ridges, basaltic peaks, or finely-timbered valleys succeed ; 

 but on passing from the Eiver Nare to the N.N.W., it was found 

 that the drought had been of such long continuance, that the whole 

 of the vegetable surface had been swept away by the wind, leaving 

 the country an absolute desert ; a few widely-scattered tufts of grass 

 being the only food discoverable for the support of the horses. 

 When on the route to the N.W., which it is known that Leich- 

 hardt had intended to follow, Gregory found that high floods had 

 obliterated all tracks of previous explorers, and that the very 

 districts described by Mitchell as covered by a rich vegetation were 

 parched and barren clays ! In lat. 24:^ 55', long. 146"^ 6', a tree 

 was, however, discovered, on which the letter L was cut, indi- 

 cating very probably that Leichhardt had encamped there. 



Continuing the search towards the north-west, Gregory then en- 

 countered tremendously heavy rains, and was entangled among 

 numerous and deep channels and boggy gullies, from which the 

 party was only extricated by extraordinary exertions. Such are the 

 frightful vicissitudes abounding in this low region of alternate flood 

 and drought which separates the fertile hilly country of the east 

 coast from the great interior saline desert. In this region they met 

 with occasional small parties of natives, who, as usual, w*re shy and 



* The richest of the specimens is from the rock or key called the Little Scrub. I have 

 sent an account of these keys and a detailed analysis of the specimens, as prepared in 

 the Government School of Mines, to the Royal Agricultural Society for publication in their 

 volume, and have there expressed a hope that a geological sui-veyor may be sent to the 

 Anguillas to define the extent and relations of these phosphatic rocks. 



