110 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF THE 
part of our way over these ranges to Mount York, where the 
public road abruptly dips into the Vale of Clwyd. Many of 
the Acacie and other Leguminose, which had afforded me 
their well-ripened seeds formerly at this season of the year, 1 
observed had met with so severe a check, that although they 
had produced in a partial manner, their flowers were unable 
to perfect their fruit ; whilst others, again, which in moderate 
seasons of moisture had put forth their blossoms in October, 
so as to furnish ripe seeds about the opening of the new year, 
were now observed to be struggling for an existence, not 
having blossomed at all. Such was the parched condition of 
vegetation generally, that it only required a spark and a 
breeze to set the whole of this mountainous country on fire; 
this had been partially effected either by careless travellers 
having allowed the fires of their several bivouacs to spread, 
or by the aborigines in hunting; for miles the flames had 
destroyed every trace of vegetable life, and had left a black- 
ened waste of the most desolate description, At length we 
reached Cox’s river, but meeting with no plants in the state 
in which I had hoped to have found them at this season, I 
did not continue onward to Bathurst, but by lengthened 
stages returned to Paramatta with only a few packets of 
seeds. The heat of the present summer has been greater 
than we have felt it for two or three years preceding. The 
thermometer has not only risen to a higher average, but has 
repeatedly been observed to stand during noon or for three 
hours of our noon tide glare in the shade and under a veran- 
dah facing the south, at 105° in Paramatta, and even higher 
in Sydney, in situations neither affected by direct or even 
reflected" solar heat." 
On his return to Paramatta, Mr. Cunningham received 
the melancholy information of the demise of his venerable 
father, who had reached the patriarchal age of eighty-four 
years. 
Early in May Mr. Cunningham undertook a third voyage to 
Moreton Bay, at which place and at Brisbane Town he con- 3 
tinued till the middle of June ; he then made an excursion tó d 
ST a 
