BOTANICAL, TOPOGRAPHICAL AND GEOLOGICAL NOTES. 123 



BOTANICAL, TOPOGRAPHICAL and GEOLOGICAL 

 NOTES ON some ROUTES OF ALLAN CUNNINGHAM. 1 



By J. H. Maiden and R. H. Cambage. 



[With Plates V, VI, VII.] 



[Read before the Royal Society of N. S. Wales, August 4, 1909. .] 



I — The Nepean River to O'Connell Plains. 

 The terminal point reached by Blaxland, Wentworth and 

 Lawson when they succeeded in crossing the Blue Moun- 

 tains in 1813, was across Cox's River, and a little to the 

 south of Mount Blaxland. From here to Bathurst the 

 country was subsequently explored by Surveyor G. W. 

 Evans, and the track which he followed was used as the 

 main road for some years, being constructed under the 

 supervision of William Cox 2 and was travelled over by 

 Governor Macquarie in 1815, on the occasion of his visit 

 to Bathurst. Surveyor General Oxley 3 passed along this 

 road in April 1817, when on his way to explore the Lower 

 Lachlan and part of the Macquarie Rivers, having amongst 

 his party Allan Cunningham, King's Botanist, and Charles 

 Fraser, afterwards Colonial Botanist, and both of them 

 subsequently Superintendents of the Botanic Gardens, 

 Sydney. 



A more direct road from the vicinity of Cox's River to 

 Bathurst was afterwards laid out by Major Lockyer, leav- 

 ing the old road near Collit's Inn, at the foot of Mount 

 York, and passing through Bowenfels to Sodwalls and 

 eventually joining the original road at O'Connell Plains. 



1 For particulars of Allan Cunningham see Vol. xlii, p. 99 (1908). 



2 "Memoirs of William Cox, j.p.," (Sydney 1901). 



3 Oxley's "Journal of Two Expeditions, etc." (London 1820). 



