44 New Guinea. 



that if we allow so noble a field foi' colonization as tliat line of 

 coast presents to remain much longer unoccupied, it will not be 

 taken possession of for such a purpose by some other maritime 

 power. Prince Bismark, we know, from correspondence with a 

 fellow-countryman and admirer of his own in the Fiji Islands, is 

 on the look-out for a German colony somewhere for the new 

 Empire ; and as we have heard recently of a Eussian scientific 

 expedition to New Griiinea, it is quite possible, and in perfect 

 accordance with the well-koown practice of that great annexing 

 power, that the expedition in question may ultimately be found 

 to cover some scheme of future annexation by the Czar. The 

 Owen Stanley- coast line is within two hundred and fifty miles of 

 one of our actual settlements, and communication could therefore 

 be kept up with it from thence by means of a small steamer with 

 perfect facility. 



The eligibility of this line of coast for the establishment of 

 Christian missions, simultaneously with the carrying out of such 

 plans of colonization as might be deemed practicable and expe- 

 dient, is too obvious to require a more particular notice. Such 

 missions on the one hand, and such plans of colonization on the 

 other, might not only prove mutually helpful, but would in all 

 likelihood ensure proper treatment for the aborigines on the part 

 of the European adventurers, and shed a flood of light upon many 

 important questions in ethnology. Nothing, for instance, in the 

 whole field of speculation, can possibly be more interesting than 

 the fact that we have almost in our own immediate neighbourhood 

 in this colony a numerous people, dwelling in communities and 

 comparatively somewhat advanced in civilization, in precisely the 

 same social state and circumstances as those of the dwellers ni the 

 mysterious habitations of the Lakes of Switzerland before history 

 began. To know something more about these mysterious people 

 would surely be worthy of a great eftbrt on our part. 



In regard to the prospect of valuable gold discoveries being 

 likely to be made in that part of New Guinea, the late Mr. John 

 MacGillivray, the naturalist of Captain Owen Stanley's expe- 

 dition, writes as follows: — 



"That gold exists in the western and northern portions of 

 New Guinea has long been known; that it exists also on the 

 south-eastern shores of that great island is equally true, as speci- 

 mens of pottery procured at Eedscar Bay (near Cape Possession 

 on that coast) contained a few small laminar grains of this 

 precious metal. The clay in which the gold is imbedded was pro- 

 bably part of the great alluvial deposit on the banks of the 

 rivers, the mouths of which we saw in the neighbourhood, doubt- 

 less originating in the high mountains behind, part of the Owen 

 Stanley Eange."* 



* liiarrative of the Voyage of H. M.S. Rattlesnake, during tliejiais 1845-1850, 

 Vol. II., page 69. 



