Exploration of Australia 1 5 3 



surface. Now several specimens of Ophicoma had been 

 brought up from 1260 fathoms between Cape Farewell 

 and Rockall, in the stomachs of which Globigerina were 

 abundant. Small tubes also, formed of the shells of this 

 foraminifer, and probably once tenanted by an annelid, 

 were brought up from 1913 fathoms ; living serpulae with 

 spirorbis from 680 fathoms, and free annelids, with amphipod 

 Crustacea, from 445 fathoms, so that the enormous pressure 

 at great depths seems not to have any destructive effect on 

 such delicate organisms. 1 



Sir R. Murchison stated that Mr. M'Douall Stuart, with 

 two men and thirteen horses, had recently made a journey 

 from Adelaide for 1300 miles to the north. He had turned 

 back in lat. 18 47' S. and long. 134 E., being prevented 

 from reaching the north coast only by the hostility of the 

 natives. Instead of the arid salt desert, which he had 

 expected, he had found a succession of oases, providing 

 sufficient water and vegetation to maintain transit between 

 the southern and northern part of the Australian continent. 



1861. Jan. 24th, I26th meeting. Sir R. Murchison 

 said he had that morning heard of an expedition undertaken 

 by Mr. M'Douall Stuart, prior to that mentioned on the 

 last occasion, for which the citizens of Adelaide had provided 

 the funds, and during which he had discovered in the interior 

 an immense lake, 2 which extended northward beyond the 

 range of telescopes, its southern margin being 29 S. lat. 

 and 139 E. long. The water was extremely salt, though 

 springs of fresh water, often copious, were abundant in 

 its near neighbourhood. Mr. Stuart had now started, with 

 a considerably stronger party, on a fresh expedition into 

 the interior. 3 



Dr. Hooker, in exhibiting a branch of a new species of 

 Araucaria, which had been found growing to a height of 



1 The story of the distribution of life in the deeper parts of the Ocean, 

 prior to the voyage of the Challenger (Dec. iSya-May, 1876), is told by- 

 Professor C. Wyville Thomson in The Depths of the Sea, 1873. 



2 Probably Lake Eyre, though 137 would be nearer its longitude. 

 s The one which reached a point west of Chambers Bay in 1862. 



