president's address. 771 



That meddlesome fire-brand, Dr. Lang, in his eagerness to 

 Ix'sj tatter an official, endeavoured to deprive Oxley of the honour 

 of his discovery, but his unfounded statements have been most 

 ably and conclusively refuted by the Right Honorable Sir Hugh 

 M. Nelson, in his last year's address to the Queensland Geogra- 

 phical Society. A statue has been erected to the memory of the 

 reverend libeller; but the noble fellow, whom he tried to belittle, 

 rests in an unknown grave, and his remains will probably be 

 carted away in the common ruck, to make room for the proposed 

 new Sydney railway terminus. 



Between the years 18LS and 1821, Cunningham accompanied 

 Admiral King in some or all of his four voyages to King George's 

 Sound, Dampier's Archipelago, Hobart Town, Macquarie Har- 

 bour, Torres Straits, and many intermediate places. He subse- 

 quently visited many parts of the interior, and, in February, 1831, 

 returned to England ; but, after the unfortunate loss of his 

 brother Richard, in Mitchell's expedition of 1835, he accepted 

 the office of Colonial Botanist, and, in 1839, died at the age of 

 48, in the Sydney Botanic Gardens, where a monument was 

 erected to his memory. There can be little doubt that his life 

 was shortened by the hardships which he had so long and so con- 

 tinuously undergone. 



As Sir Joseph Hooker remarks, his botanical travels were the 

 most continuous and extensive that have ever been performed in 

 Australia, or, perhaps, in any other country : his vast collections 

 were, for the most part, transferred to the British Museum. 



In 1818, Oxley, accompanied by Fraser, conducted a second 

 expedition into the interior, which was as fruitful in botanical 

 results as the first. 



In the same and following year, Captain Fre} r cinet's expedition, 

 in the French corvettes " Uranie " and " Physicienne," accom- 

 panied by M. Gaudichaud as botanist, also did good service, and in 

 honour of the leader and of the botanist the name Freycinetia 

 Gaudichaudi was bestowed on a Queensland plant. 



Afterwards M. Lesson, in "La Coquille " and subsequently in 

 " L' Astrolabe," did some botanical service, and, in 1823, Dr. 



