ANNIVERSARY ADDRESS. 39 
can conceive few ways in which the public funds could be better 
applied than by defraying or subsidising, the cost of journeys of 
Australian botanists to regions that could be readily indicated. 
And while such explorations could not result in such abundance 
of new material as Mueller and his predecessors obtained on their 
journeys, yet many plants still remain to be discovered, and many 
problems pertaining to variation and geographical distribution, 
and even more important botanical matters, remain to be solved. 
Just as in the early gold-digging days alluvial very frequently 
gave valuable results with comparatively little labour, so now 
claims are reduced in area and worked deeper. And in this 
laborious working of small areas many prizes have been won, 
and remain to be won. 
I do not wish to push my comparison too far, certainly not so 
far as to let it be inferred for a moment that the labours of Mueller 
have been anything but arduous., Only his earlier contemporaries 
can recount the troubles and dangers the Baron passed through 
in his early days. Days, weeks, and even months has he passed 
alone in the wilds of Australia—in the inhospitable ranges of the 
Victorian-New South Wales Alps, to wit. He took a slender 
Supply of poor food, and his only companion was a pack-horse. I 
Suppose his insatiable fondness for a cup of tea dates from the 
time he used to boil his billy in the fastnesses of the Southern 
Alps. Loneliness I am sure he did not feel, for how can a man 
feel lonely when new plants present themselves every where to his 
delighted gaze. On one occasion one of these mountain streams 
Tose rapidly, Mueller’s scanty supply of food was washed away, 
and he himself climbed into a tree to pass the night and to await 
events. He also went on very short commons on some of his 
other trips. 
His Victorian explorations in the early days were as follows: 
In 1853 he explored the Australian Alps from the Victorian side, 
See his First General Report on the Vegetation of the Colony, 
_ dated September 1853. During 1854 he examined the Grampians 
and the adjacent ranges ; thence to the Darling, and along ban oe 
