EXPLORATION IX AUSTRALIA. 235 



The eastern side of the country is traversed by a great range of 

 thinly timbered down, clothed with grasses and herbage, and rising 

 to an elevation of 3500 feet. These are known as the Blue Moun- 

 tains, and stretch from north to south over nearly thirty degrees of 

 latitude, from Cape York to Cape Wilson. All their western slopes 

 descend gradually towards the interior, until they are lost in the vast 

 desert plain of the interior. 



The streams which flow in this direction either pour their waters 

 into the great rivers, such as the Darling and the Murray, which has 

 an internal navigation of 1800 miles, or lose themselves in the 

 marshes and lakes, which the great summer heats periodically diy up. 



Another chain of mountains stretches from south to north along 

 the western coast of Australia, from Point d'Entrecasteaux to Murchi- 

 son River. A third chain, in the northern region, runs from east to 

 west, between Camden Harbour and the Gulf of Carpentaria. The 

 interior of the country is, as I have already indicated, in all proba- 

 bility an immense plain, thinly sown with trees of the two families of 

 Acacise and Eucalypti, and tenanted by the wombat and the 

 kangai-oo. 



Over this vast portion of Australia, which still remains a blank 

 upon the map, numerous expeditions of discovery have been attempted 

 since the earliest days of European colonization. Hardy pioneers 

 those men who are the real, but obscure, and speedily forgotten 

 founders of empires have sacrificed their lives in the endeavour to 

 lay down a track across the great' island-continent from north to south. 

 Anglo-Saxon enterprise no sooner found itself securely planted on the 

 sea-coast, than it felt that behind it lay a continent to acquire, and 

 the indomitable instinct of the race bade it continue its mission of 

 colonization. During the last quarter of a century, the colonial 

 governments have liberally encouraged these explorations, and the 

 annals of Australian discovery have been illuminated by the names of 

 Eyre (1840), Sturt (1845), Leichardt (1846-48), Kennedy (1848), 

 and M'Douall Stuart (185862), second to none among our English 

 discoverers in patience, resolution, and heroic daring. 



