ANNIVERSARY ADDRESS. f 
Lords of the Admiralty by the then Professor of Botany at 
Cambridge. He sailed with that expedition on the 27th of 
December, 1831, and returned to England in October, 1836, 
having made a scientific circumnavigation of the globe. On 
returning to England Darwin published a “ Journal of Researches 
into the Geology and Natural History” of the various countries 
he had visited, in addition to numerous papers on various scientific 
subjects. 
Mr. Darwin’s conclusions as to the future of New South Wales, 
after crossing the Blue Mountains and going as far as Bathurst, 
are worth recording, as those of a keen observer who visited the 
Colony nearly half a century ago. Hesays: “The rapid prosperity 
and future prospects of this Colony are to me, not understanding 
these subjects, very puzzling. The two main exports are wool 
and whale oil, and to both of these productions there is a limit. 
The country is totally unfit for canals, therefore there is not a 
very distant point beyond which the land carriage of wool will 
not repay the expense of shearing and tending sheep. Pasture 
everywhere is so thin that settlers have already pushed far into 
the interior. Moreover, the country further inland becomes 
extremely poor ; agriculture, on account of the droughts, can 
never succeed on an extended scale ; therefore, so far as I can see, 
Australia must ultimately depend upon being the centre of com- 
merce for the southern hemisphere, and perhaps on her future 
manufactories. Possessing coal, she always has the moving power 
at hand. From the habitable country extending along the coast, 
and from her English extraction, she is sure to be a maritime 
nation. I formerly imagined that Australia would rise to be as 
grand and powerful a country as North America, but now it 
appears to me that such future grandeur is rather problematical.” 
Before his lamented death, no doubt, Darwin had seen cause to 
modify his early impressions, and to recognize the gigantic strides 
made by Australia towards the achievement of a national great- 
ness second only to the North American Republic to which he 
referred, 
