338 SIR RODERICK I. MURCHISON'S ADDRESS— AUSTRALIA. [May 23, 1850. 



portance to Australia has been accomplished by water. The 

 opening of the river Murray to navigation was first accomplished 

 by Captain Francis Cadell, in 1853, as narrated by that enterprising 

 seaman in a letter published in volume xxv. of our Journal. 

 Steadily persevering, with augmented resources and additional 

 steamers, the same individual and other parties have been recently 

 plying on this river from its mouth, near Adelaide, in South 

 Australia, to Albury, a distance of nearly 1800 miles. Tho 

 channel of the Wakool has also been tested for 50 miles, and 

 Captain Cadell has passed up the Murrumbidgee in a steamboat for 

 800 miles ! Thus, a region in which six years ago no internal traffic 

 existed, has been opened out to water carriage over a distance of 

 2650 miles, it being estimated that 1150 miles more may eventually 

 be accomplished in the rivers Wakool, Edward, and Darling. The 

 Murray and Murrumbidgee are now ascertained to be navigable 

 from May to the end of December in every year, and for the whole 

 twelve months in those years when more than the average amount 

 of snow and rain falls in the Alpine country in which they take 

 their rise. The Darling, not having its sources in mountains of 

 such altitude, cannot be similarly reckoned upon, though probably 

 it might also be rendered navigable in ordinary seasons if the drift 

 timber, which at present encumbers it, were removed. Referring 

 my readers to the clear and searching Eeport of a Committee on 

 the navigation of the Murray and its affluents, printed by order of 

 the Legislative Assembly of New South Wales (29th Oct., 1858), 

 as signed by its chairman, that good explorer, Mr. George Macleay, 

 and brought to my notice by my friend Mr. Stuart Donaldson, also 

 one of the Committee,* it is enough for me to cull from that able 

 document the astounding fact, that twenty towns, some of them of 

 considerable size, such as Albury, Deniliquin, Gundagai, Tumut, 

 and Wagga-Wagga, have been called into existence, and that seven 

 more are about to be proclaimed. Already, 71,000 acres of land in 

 this vicinity have been sold ; and if, by Artesian borings, fresh 

 water should be obtained in the vast salt-bush countries yet un- 

 occupied, prodigious additional quantities of sheep and cattle may 

 be supported in the adjacent regions. 



Descending from the lofty Australian Alps of Strzelecki (Mount 

 Kosciusko), the Murray traverses tracts, some of which, as well as 

 portions of the basin of the Murrumbidgee, have been ascertained by 



* Recently Minister of Finance of that colony. 



