182 
POPULAR SCIENCE REVIEW. 
But we are anticipating, and will now invite our readers to 
accompany us in a stroll tlirougli this department of the Exhi- 
bition, during which we will endeavour to point ont those 
objects that recommend themselves to our notice from their 
rarity, utility, or novel application. 
As we enter the north-east transept, and approach the 
courts of the Antipodes, our attention is arrested by a scries of 
water and oil colour drawings, which not only possess consider- 
able merit as works of art, but representing, as they do, scenes 
illustrative of life in these remote colonies, and of the dangers 
to which the settler is subject, may well serve as a frontispiece 
to our matter-of-fact description of the treasures winch are 
stored in the courts beyond. 
Here we find transferred to canvas the sad story of a colonist 
who during his wanderings in the backwoods has missed his 
way; “Lost in the Bush; or, a Fern-tree Gully” is its title, 
which conveys but a faint idea of the incident depicted. In 
the centre of the picture lies the poor traveller, asleep or 
dying from exhaustion. His garments are of the most meagre 
and ragged description, and bear witness of many a weary and 
painful day’s wandering through the “bush.” His body is 
guarded by his faithful dog’, an Australian dingo, who keeps 
at bay the vultures soaring overhead and awaiting the departure 
of the spirit, that they may pounce upon their lifeless prey. 
Close to the settler lies his horse, if the miserable collection of 
skin-covered bones may be so designated ; and he, too, is sur- 
rounded by a hungry and expectant assemblage, a pack of 
wolves, likewise held at bay by the faithful dog. 
But what a contrast with this picture of misery and death is 
afforded by the surrounding scene! High tree-ferns and other 
denizens of the forest, towering aloft in rank luxuriance, are 
visible on every side ; but even these fail to hide the clear blue 
sky which peers calmly through their branches, as though it 
were looking clown upon some joyous festival or merry- 
making; and all around we find a calm repose — a natural 
profusion ! 
But let us move onward a pace or two, and here we are 
amongst the “ diggers.” These are the “ Bendigo gold-fields, 
with the town of Sandhurst in the distance,” the Land of 
Promise, to which so many of our brothers and sisters, lovers 
and husbands (not always those, by the way, whose absence 
was to be regretted) have been attracted by dreams of gold. 
Here we have the gold-seekers’ operations brought home for 
our “ private view,” — and what a motley scene it is ! 
Diggers hard at work with picks and spades — Europeans, 
Yankees, Chinese, men of all climes and countries. Yonder is 
the digger’s hut, and his lady at the door, attired in the gayest 
