Hei, PRESIDENT’S ADDRESS—SECTION E. 
correct positions and the altitudes of their various peaks, and the 
precise mapping of the country explored and observed by hin. 
An excellent paper descriptive of this expedition, compiled from 
Sir Wm. McGregor’s own notes and remarks, is communicated to 
the Queensland Branch of the Royal Geographical Society of 
Australasia by the indefatigable hon. secretary of that branch, 
Mr. J. P. Thomson, and appears in its transactions, accompanied 
by a well-executed map prepared in the Survey Department of 
that colony from Sir William’s drawings. 
The altitude of Mount Victoria is determined by Sir Wm. 
McGregor to be 13,122 feet, and discloses at its summit an almost 
Alpine character in its flora, representative specimens of which, 
of great interest to science, have been submitted to the investiga- 
tion of the learned Baron von Mueller, whose observations thereon 
have been made public. Further discoveries of great interest and 
importance in this almost unknown region may be looked for in 
the future, through the indomitable energy and courage of his 
Honour the Administrator of the Government of this the latest 
acquisition to the empire. 
Our German cousins, with their usual indefatigable zeal and 
perseverance, have also not been idle in their part of this great 
island, but have pushed exploration in all directions, advancing 
toward a thorough knowledge of the physical character and 
capabilities of their possession ; not, I regret to say, without the 
consequent sacrifice of valuable health and life that exploration 
in such latitudes demands of the pioneers of civilisation. 
From South Australia exploration, assisted, I believe, financially 
by Victorian contributions, has been pushed towards the centre 
of the continent under the leadership of Mr. W. Tietkins, from 
whose report, when available, much interesting and valuable 
information may be expected. From New South Wales also an 
expedition, under Mr. Arthur Vogan, has been sent westward, 
no results of which, however, are yet to hand. 
Tn Queensland a small party, led by Mr. A. Meston, subsidised 
by the Government of that colony, gained the summit of Mount 
Bellenden Kerr, alleged to have been hitherto untrodden by the 
foot of the white man ; but beyond some zoological and botanical 
discoveries, no great scientific interest attaches to this expedition, 
if it can be so called. 
The South Pacific Archipelago we must look to, surely in the 
not very distant future, as a field for closer exploration, parti- 
cularly from Australian sources ; for is it not obvious that the: 
whole of these fertile islands, great with the possibilities of 
commerce, and even possibly of settlement, known at present 
only by the most superficial intercourse with their barbarous and 
savage inhabitants through the merest trade skirmishing, if I 
may use the term, and ephemeral missionary settlement, must 
come within the jurisdiction and influence of the future great 
