1826.] surveying the Indian Archipektgo. 183 



nate result of that expedition is too well known. Shortly after, 

 the tide of public attention set towards the North Pole under the 

 fallacious hope of there finding an open basin of water. This 

 current, which a single summer's excursion to Spitzbergen and 

 round the head of Baffin's Bay served all of a sudden to freeze 

 for ever in a manner not yet well accounted for, immediately 

 took a more westerly direction, and the minds of all people 

 became filled with a desire of solving the grand problem of a 

 North-west Passage. This object, so greatly interesting to 

 geography, has since continued to engross almost entirely the 

 pubhc anxiety. To encompass it, a series of sea and land expe- 

 ditions, in their nature imminently perilous, have been performed 

 with an ardour and perseverance not more creditable to the 

 projectors than to the devotedness and enduring fortitude of 

 those to whom the execution was entrusted. 



While these are pending, hardly any thing of sufficient 

 moment occurs to engage public curiosity ; and as from their 

 sameness and repetition the edge of novelty and the pain of 

 anxiety are much worn off, they have, in a great degree, ceased 

 to produce that intense interest which they at one time excited. 

 Other fields of enterprize and inquiry must, therefore, be sought 

 for, and one in every way productive opens on our view. Over 

 the numerous islands of the Indian Archipelago nature has 

 poured her bounties and her beauties with an unsparing hand. 

 These gems of the ocean are the native soil of almost all those 

 rare and precious herbs and fruits which minister to man's enjoy- 

 ments wnen in health ; to his rehef when under disease. Yet 

 more is known of the fungi and the lichens growing on the 

 barren rocks of Melville Island, than of the fragrant health- 

 giving plants of the Moluccas ! As articles of commerce we see 

 them, it is true, in the packages of the merchant's warehouse — ■ 

 from certain unauthentic sources we gather that they flourish 

 here or there, but of their minute botanical history we hardly 

 know any thing precise. 



A few species of insects and fishes from the more frequented 

 commercial depots are sometimes brought over to furnish food 

 for speculation, or to raise an eager but fruitless desire for fur- 

 ther information on the part of naturalists; while the exhaustless 

 swarms of entomonic and ichthyonic life that every where 

 abound in those regions are to us as though they were not. 



We have " travelling the country" that rara avis the black 

 ^wan, and other birds from New South Wales, Van Diemen's 

 Land, &c. while the myriads of the feathered tribes that haunt 

 the Archipelagan Seas and Islands are left to be guessed at 

 from a few dried skins occasionally finding their way into our 

 cabinets. 



The history of the kanguroo, ornithorynchus paradoxus, &c. 

 is familiar as household words in the mouths even of our chil- 



