'tqis'l Barnard, Journeys of Dr. Newnayer in Victoria. 185 



SOME ACCOUNT OF THE JOURNEYS OF DR. GEORGE 

 NEUMAYER IN VICTORIA, 1859-64. 



By F. G. a. Barnard. 



{Read before the Field Naturalists' Club of Victoria, 12th Feb., 1917.) 



It is fitting that we should sometimes devote a Uttle attention 

 to the work of the early pioneers of science in this State, and 

 with that view I want to bring under your notice this evening 

 the work of Dr. Geo. Neumayer in Victoria in the early sixties. 

 Some twelve years ago I took an opportunity of drawing atten- 

 tion to the three wonderful journeys made by the late Baron 

 von Mueller in the early days of this State, when he added so 

 much to the botanical knowledge of the then colony of Victoria 

 that those who came after have had few opportunities to secure 

 further novelties.* 



While Dr. Neumayer's journeys were made at a later period 

 of the colony's history, when the country was not so sparsely 

 populated, they were not made without some hardships, and 

 though the brief accounts of them do not contain so much 

 that is interesting to members of this Club as those of Baron 

 von Mueller, still here and there we find notes which give 

 some idea of the state of the country in those comparatively 

 far-off times. 



Of Dr. Neumayer's personal history I have but little know- 

 ledge. He was born in Bavaria in June, 1826, and was there- 

 fore about thirty-three years of age when he started on his 

 first trip to Maldon, &c. He had, however, been in Victoria 

 for some years previously. Mr. Alexander Sutherland, in 

 " Victoria and Its Metropolis," in referring to the beginnings 

 of the Melbourne Observatory, says Neumayer arrived in 1857, 

 commissioned by the King of Bavaria to inaugurate a magnetic 

 survey of Australia, but Neumayer, in the account of his fourth 

 trip, says : — ■" On nth October (1861) left camp (near Epsom) 

 at 9 a.m. and passed through Sandhurst. . . Left im- 

 mediately for Kangaroo Gully, about seven miles distant. It 

 was here that I lived eight years ago when engaged in gold 

 digging. It is wonderful what effect those eight years have 

 had about the place. Where there were formerly green forests 

 and a muddy creek, a thriving little township with innumerable 

 chimne3^s is now springing up. It was scarcely possible for 

 me to identify the spot where my tent had stood in those 

 primitive days of my mining life, and where I used to give 

 lessons in navigation to the numerous seafaring men who had 

 then visited the goldfields in search of good luck, and, wearied 

 and disappointed, were anxious to return to their original 



*"Some Earljr Botanical Explorations in Victoria," Vict. Nat., xxi., 

 p. 17 (June, 1904). 



