Natural History on the Lower Murray. 127 



and the country I have travelled, I now beg to lay before you 

 the result of my labours, observing, in the meantime, that the 

 mechanical part — viz., that of preserving the specimens — was 

 done by my white laborers alone, whilst the specimens were 

 obtained by the assistance of the aborigines, to whom I am 

 indebted for all the information and discoveries I have made, 

 so that I can but claim a small share of the credit of having, 

 with my party, been successfully exploring the desert of Aus- 

 tralia for eight months. 



I can add but little to the description given by Sir Thomas 

 Mitchell of the physical character of the country which I have 

 traversed, and which he visited before me, but allow me at least 

 to give you an outline of the most prominent features of the 

 same. 



Having passed the bold and steep Dividing Eanges at Lance- 

 field, I descended into the rich and extensive grassy plains be- 

 tween the Campaspe and Loddon Eivers, which are strik- 

 ingly similar to the Gawler Town plains, in South Australia, 

 and which are destined at some future period to supply the 

 Victorian market with fat cattle, when the benefits of irrigation 

 are better understood by our colonists, and when, by means of a 

 railway, access to Melbourne from the Murray District will be 

 rendered easy. 



Mount Hope and Mount Pyramid, characterised by their 

 picturesque appearance, arising from enormous blocks of granite, 

 towering in bold rehef, one above the other out of the alluvial 

 flats, will at some future day be the Madeira and Oporto of 

 Victoria. No spot offered to my eye a finer prospect of success 

 in wine growing in Victoria, than this small area of about 30,000 

 acres of splendid soil. 



The remainder of the country in the neighbourhood of the 

 Murray, consists of barren, stiff and firm clay flats of remark- 

 able evenness, partly covered with box-trees or salsolae bushes, 

 and in other parts with dense, impenetrable mallee scrub, easily 

 distinguished at a great distance by its dirty looking, dark olive 

 green leaves. Wherever the Mallee Scrub is met with, the 

 soil is interspered with numerous nodules of limestone. The 

 bright green of cypress forests, with the duller aspect of the 

 oak, growing on sand hummocks interrupts the monotony of the 

 box-tree flats. Now and then a cluster of Eucalypti growing 

 along the banks of the Billibong, and ornamenting the 

 banks of the slowly flowing Murray, occasionally relieve 

 the weary traveller with their refreshing looks, and remind 

 him, that ultimately the sheep and cattle of those regions will 



