president's address. 783 



The anxiety, caused by the non-return of Burke and Wills and 

 of Leichhardt at the expected times, gave a great impetus to 

 further explorations, and resulted in an expedition under Lands- 

 borough from Carpentaria, another under Walker from Rock- 

 hampton, and another under M'Kinlay from Adelaide, which 

 reached within a few miles of the Gulf of Carpentaria. 



Mueller, in an appendix to the account of Landsborough's 

 expedition, gave a list of the plants known to exist at the Gulf, 

 and remarked upon the general similarity of the inter-tropical 

 productions to those of the extra-tropical parts of Australia, and 

 thought it likely that no other country retained its similarity of 

 features throughout so great an area and through so many degrees 

 of latitude. 



The feat of crossing Australia had now been accomplished six 

 times, and the road across was beginning to be almost considered 

 a beaten track. 



[n 1 S G 9 , John Forrest conducted an expedition in search of 

 Leichhardt, and, in 1870. accomplished a journey from Adelaide 

 to Perth round the great bight, over the track which had been so 

 nearly fatal to Eyre ; and in 1874 he travelled from Perth to the 

 central telegraph line, which had then been stretched right across 

 the continent. The account of his last journey contains an 

 appendix by Mueller of the plants collected. 



Mr. Thomas Elder most patriotically fitted out three expedi- 

 tions, and after having introduced 121 camels, started Colonel P. E. 

 Warburton from Adelaide in 1872. The spirit of exploration, 

 which had started the remarkable expeditions of Roe, Lefroy and 

 Hunt, having now been greatly encouraged by Governor Weld, 

 through whom the Messrs. J. and A. Forrest had successfully 

 pushed their explorations further and further into the waste of 

 salt swamps which filled the centre of the continent; after 

 suffering great hardships Warburton was only just able to reach 

 Roeburne on his way to Perth, after picking the bones of his last 

 camel. His health was so greatly broken that he could do little to 

 assist the publication of the account of his expedition. Dr. 



