I'.M 



flu- Fortb Valley, Middlesex, Mayday Plain, and Mount Black. 

 This track would facilitate exploration of the country south of 

 Surrey Hills, and more than half of it is already practicable 

 for traffic. 



The route known as the Linda Track, from Mount Arrow- 

 smith to Mount Lyell and the West Coast, to which reference 

 lias already been made in connection with the cattle-track from 

 the North, constitutes at present the sole medium of land 

 communication between Eastern and Western Tasmania. If 

 it is regarded merely as a bridle-road or cattle-track, the 

 Linda track must be kept in repair, and improved from time 

 to time as occasion requires. There is another consideration 

 which should not be lost sight of. Every road through the 

 western country should be made to serve, as far as possible, 

 the purposes of a base line of exploration of the surround- 

 ing country, and the weak point of this route is that between 

 the Dee and Mount Lyell, a distance of 84 miles, there is no 

 j)lace where supplies of any kind could be obtained. A 

 prospector who has to fight his way through " bauera " and 

 " horizontal," if he has no depot to fall back upon when his 

 small stores are exhausted, is indeed heavily handicapped. 



The next route to be considered is one which was originally 

 designed as a main road to the West Coast, but which has 

 never yet produced any adequate return for the time, labour, 

 and money expended upon its construction. Its very exist- 

 ence is now* almost forgotten, and of those who know anything 

 of " Dawson's-road," there are not many who could give much 

 information about the line of country through which it passes. 

 This road dates from the time of Governor Sir William 

 Deuison. Starting from Dunrobin bridge, it crosses the Broad 

 and .Repulse Rivers, and winds up and around one of the 

 outliers of the Mount Field or Humboldt Range, the curves 

 and grades being laid out with the engineering skill which is 

 a characteristic of all similar works of that time. Leaving 

 Mount Misery, the road descends into the Florentine Valley, 

 where my personal acquaintance with it ceases. Crossing the 

 Florentine River, Dawson's-road was carried up its left bank 

 to Gell's Lookout, and thence westerly to the Gordon Bend. 

 Some selections were made in the Florentine Valley early in 

 the sixties, and one enterprising pioneer took up his residence 

 there, but after a few years' trial the place was abandoned, 

 and the road soon became blocked by fallen timber. It was 

 again cleared as far as the Florentine in 1878, but is probably 

 now quite impassable, except where its course lies through 

 open country. Dawson's-road could be again cleared, and the 

 Florentine bridged, at a moderate cost ; but, if the object in 

 view is merely to give access to the Florentine Valley and the 

 country beyond it, it is now quite evident that a much more 



