16 president's address. 



date and 1832, a number of small but interesting expeditions 

 were undertaken at the instance of Sir James Stirling, which 

 greatly extended the knowledge of the western region. 



About the same time, Victoria was invaded from the south 

 by restless pioneers from the settlements in Tasmania, and 

 from the north, across the Murray, by explorers and over- 

 landers with their stock to occupy the rich lands of Australia 

 Felix. 



Soon after New Year, 1830, Captain Charles Sturt, who 

 had left Sydney the previous year, started his adventurous 

 voyage down the Murray, and reached South Australia, 

 where, six years later, the town of Adelaide was laid out by 

 Colonel Light. 



With the settlement of Port Essington, on the north coast, 

 when the military stations at Melville Island and Raffles Bay 

 were abandoned in 1831, we may say that Australia was in- 

 vested on all sides. 



A remarkable idea, that had an important influence on the 

 colonisation of Australia, was the general opinion of the 

 settlers and explorers that the greater part of the central 

 lands of the continent was marsh or desert, and much of the 

 coast land useless for settlement. Captain Dampier, and the 

 Dutch navigators, fresh from the rich tropical jungles of the 

 East Indies, could see no future for the mud flats, and pindan 

 scrub, which last hid the rich open forest-land of the north- 

 west coast. It is also evident that it was the totally different 

 aspect of the Australian bush-land, wind-swept plains, and 

 stunted forests, with the parched soil clothed with tufts of 

 brown bleached grass under a summer sun, which, compared 

 with the green fields of England, damped the spirits of our 

 pioneers. 



The first inland explorers, working out westward in New 

 South Wales, were very unfortunate in their seasons. First, 

 they became entangled in the Macquarie Marshes ; then they 

 struck the River Darling in a time of drought, when the river 



