16 INAUGURAL ADDRESS, 



undreamt of by the pioneers of investigation in old settled 

 or inhabited countries. One of our pioneer explorers of the 

 western highlands gives the following description of the 

 ordinary difficulties which his party had to contend with. 

 He states : ' Apart from the never-ending rugged mountains, 

 gullies, and ravines to be traversed, and the dangerous rapids 

 to cross, the intermediate plateaux and mountain slopes in 

 Tasmania are often so continuously clothed with a dense and 

 luxurious growth of vegetation (horizontal and bauera scrub) 

 that it is impossible to pursue a course on foot in one direction 

 for any distance without literally, axe in hand, cutting or 

 hacking a track sufficiently wide to admit of squeezing the 

 body through. This is not an easy matter, as each individual 

 is of necessity encumbered with a heavy knapsack of from 60 

 to 70 lbs. weight. This knapsack, or portable storehouse, 

 must contain all the essentials for providing shelter and food 

 (small tent and bare necessaries) for the individual for a 

 period of at least six weeks, as no friendly dwelling or bush- 

 man's camp is likely to be met with until he returns to his 

 point of original departure.' 



" The distinguished traveller. Count P. E. de Strzelecki, 

 was the first person who explored a considerable portion of 

 this Island for the express purpose of investigating its 

 geological and mineralogical character. The extent of his 

 observations may be best appreciated when we consider that 

 his journeyings on foot in New South Wales and Tasmania, 

 over a period of five years, are estimated to have amounted 

 in all to a length of 7000 miles, or about 1 16 miles per month. 

 It is true that the greater part of his travels did not extend 

 far beyond the tracks or bush roads of the earlier settlers ; but 

 the information gathered by him was extensive and valuable, 

 and formed the material which, a short time after (year 1845), 

 enabled him to publish the first systematic sketch of the 

 geology and general physical character of Australia and 

 Tasmania. 



" About the same time another distinguished traveller 

 and geologist, J. Beete Jukes, examined a considerable portion 

 of our rocks in the south-eastern region of settlement; and 

 his accurate observations, published in the same year, largely 

 sunplemented the information supplied by Count de 

 Strzelecki.* 



* Physical Description of New Soutli Wales and Van Diemen's Land, 

 (Maps and Returns, London; 1845.) 



