98 Chronicles of Science. [ Jan., 
selves into bands of plunderers and joined the slave-traders. The 
quantity of water which issues from the lake to form the Nile is still 
a matter for further research. 
At the next meeting of the Society, held on November 27th, 
Mr. Richardson read an account of an overland expedition from 
Rockhampton, Queensland, to Cape York, under the command of 
Messrs. F. and A. Jardine, which was undertaken for the purpose 
of discovering a route whereby live stock could be taken by land 
from the interior Queensland pastures to supply the new settlement 
of Somerset, at Cape York. The party left Rockhampton on May 
14th, 1864, and reached Somerset on March 11th, 1865; they 
traversed the country watered by the rivers Lynd and Mitchell in 
October and November, and report very unfavourably of that region ; 
farther north most of their horses died, after excessive sweating, 
blindness, and contraction of the stomach, apparently from eating a 
poisonous herb; but in January, on leaving the west coast of the 
gulf (lat. 14° §.), and proceeding eastward, they came to a good 
pastoral country, crossed several creeks, and, on the 24th of that 
month, discovered a new river, which they named the Jardine, 
flowing westward into the gulf. 
Mr. Dalrymple next read a paper, “On the Establishment of a 
New Settlement, Cardwell, in Rockingham Bay, and on the Discovery 
of a Route over the Coast-range to the Valley of Lagoons,” in which 
he described the position and physical features of the new settle- 
ment and its neighbourhood, and narrated the successful crossing of 
the coast-range, the discovery of a new river, which he named the 
Herbert, and the making of a road fit for wheeled vehicles over 
the pass. This road connects all the interior country, and the 
banks of the Flinders, Lynd, and Burdekin, with the shores of the 
Pacific, and is 96 miles in length. 
A third paper was then read by Mr. J. P. Stow, entitled “A 
Boat-voyage from Adam Bay, North Australia, to Champion Bay, 
Western Australia.” The author had been one of a large party 
of colonists who attempted to establish a settlement at the mouth 
of the Adelaide, in Adam Bay, Northern Australia; the endeavour 
failed completely, and the colonists quitted the isolated spot in 
small numbers, as opportunity offered. Mr. Stow and six others 
put to sea in a small boat 234 feet long, and coasted round the 
northern and western shores of the continent, in the hope of reaching 
the settlements of Western Australia, at any rate, the new settle- 
ment in Camden Harbour, 500 miles distant. Favoured by the 
weather, they accomplished this first stage of their journey, and 
Mr. Stow graphically described the voyage, the barren nature of 
the intervening country, and their continued disappointment at the 
numerous archipelagos and islands being all equally sterile. They 
found a miserable state of things at Camden Harbour, the settlers 
