108 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF THE 
ninghamia in great abundance and magnificence, Mr. Cun- 
ningham was reminded of his first visit to these districts, in 
company of the late Surveyor-General Oxley, and he pays 
a well-merited tribute to the worth and talents of that gen- 
tleman. “In traversing a patch of forest-ground, formerly 
walked over by Mr. Oxley, accompanied by Lieut. Butler 
and myself, to the Pine Ranges, I could fain have recalled 
to life that lamented gentleman, who so long and so highly 
creditably to himself, filled the important situation of Sur- 
veyor-General in this colony, and many a pleasing incident 
connected with this excellent man, now recurred to my recol- 
lection. I passed over the ground and ascended the darkly 
brushed acclivity of the Pine Range by the same opening in 
the thicket we had, four years since, penetrated to the higher 
points, where grew those stately timbers, the monarchs of 
these forests—the new Araucaria.” 
A further exploratory j journey was taken to the westward 
and north-west, in which the position of icd s Peak, a 
conical, densely-wooded mountain, situated in 27? 36' S. and 
152° 8’ E. was determined, and the Brisbane River ex- 
plored, as far as the vicinity of Lister’s Peak, in 26° 52’, the 
most northern point of Mr. Cunningham’s discoveries, of 
which he says: “ During this short journey, in which I em- 
ployed a small party about six weeks, I traced the principal 
branch of the river as far north as 26° 52/, until its channel 
assumed merely the character of a chain of very shallow 
stagnant pools. In this excursion, I made such observations 
as fully established two facts, viz: That the Brisbane River, 
at one period supposed to be the outlet of the marshes of the 
Macquarie, &c. originates at the eastern side of the dividing 
range, its chief sources being in elevated lands lying almost 
on the coast-line between the parallels of 26° and 27°, and 
that the main ranges which separate the coast waters from 
those that flow inland continue to the north in one unbroken 
chain, as far as the eye could discern from a commanding 
station, near my most distant encampment up the river, and 
present no opening or hollow part in their elevated ridge 
