782 president's address. 



the Ferns of Queensland." comprising 191 plates of ferns copied 

 by direct impression of the fronds off the stone, prove beyond 

 doubt his eminent fitness for the work, for which he at once made 

 preparations ; but, as Mueller, with some show of reason, claimed 

 the right to continue the work in which he had assisted Bentham, 

 Bailey at once gave way on condition that Bentham's system of 

 classification and nomenclature should be continued. As this did 

 not satisfy Mueller, and the usual intercolonial jealousies unfor- 

 tunately came into play, the matter was dropped ; but Bailey has 

 commenced the publication of a new work, incorporating all the 

 Queensland species of plants comprised in Bentham's book, with 

 all the recent Queensland discoveries, and leaving all the other 

 States to take care of themselves : a most unfortunate check to 

 future as well as present botanical studies ! 



The terrible hardships which had from time to time been 

 undergone by explorers in endeavouring to penetrate the interior 

 led to the belief that it was impossible to reach the centre, much 

 more to cross from sea to sea ; but in 1861 the intrepid Burke 

 and Wills, who were by no means so fit to make the attempt as 

 many others, started from Melbourne with a considerable party 

 and a number of camels just imported by the Government from 

 India. In their eagerness to push ahead, they, with King and 

 Gray, left their party at Cooper's Creek and reached the Gulf of 

 Carpentaria, though they did not actually stand on its shore and 

 pick up shells as McDouall Stuart did, nor did they even see the 

 ocean. 



Being compelled to turn back for want of provisions and from 

 exhaustion, they reached the camp in a most wretched condition, 

 only to find that their party had left it, on the way home, a few 

 hours before. After a hopeless struggle for a short time, nothing- 

 was left for them but to lie down and die, though King, with the 

 assistance of the blacks, managed to survive until the arrival of 

 a rescue party, after which they received the barren reward of a 

 costly monument erected in Melbourne. Wills' journal, kept up 

 to his death, contains a good deal of botanical information. 



