Xl The Naturalist in Nicaragua 
enough to carry those who have to bear the whole journey 
to their goal, and as the animals succumb they will be shot 
or turned adrift.’ The event showed Belt’s sagacity. The 
unfortunate government expedition left Melbourne loaded 
with camp-followers and impedimenta, and by the time 
they reached a few stages beyond Cooper’s Creek were 
well-nigh exhausted. Burke, the leader of the expedition, 
in desperation started with his two men, Wills and King, 
and bravely struck out for the Gulf of Carpentaria. 
Through desert and fertile plains, not altogether des- 
titute of water, they reached in safety the northern 
shore of Australia; but the energy, the courage, and the 
strength that took them this long, weary journey did not 
suffice to carry them back over double the distance to 
their camp. Brave hearts! they struggled on; but King 
only, and as a worn-out man, ever saw Cooper’s Creek 
again. Belt’s plan would have solved the problem with- 
out loss of life and at a tenth of the cost.’”’ He always 
regretted that he had not the means of carrying it out 
independently of government assistance. 
After eight years in Australia Belt returned to England, 
married, and was successively manager of mining com- 
panies in Nova Scotia, North Wales, and Nicaragua, sand- 
wiching in between these appointments a visit to Brazil to 
report upon some gold mines in the province of Maranham. 
In whatever part of the world his work took him he turned 
for rest and relaxation to the branches of natural science 
for which the locality offered the greatest opportunity. 
In Nova Scotia he began those investigations into the 
cause and phenomena of the glacial period which were to 
be the study of the last years of his life, and to which he 
himself attached the greatest importance. In Wales he took 
up the question of the age of the rocks in the neighbourhood 
of Dolgelly, and after much study of their fossils proposed 
the now accepted classification of the Lingula flags of the 
Lower Silurian system into the Maenturog flags and slates, 
the Festiniog flags, and the Dolgelly slates. The collecting 
of lepidoptera was his chief amusement in Brazil, where he 
made his first acquaintance with the teaming life of the 
torrid zone and laid the foundation for those observations 
on tropical nature which his longer stay in Nicaragua gave 
rise to, and which are recorded in this book. 
