8 
President’s Address. 
King and Gray pushed on, and gave to this Colony the 
glory of sharing in their brilliant achievement of first 
opening up a path across the Continent, and proving that 
the great interior, instead of being a barren arid waste, as 
was previously supposed, was in reality for the most part a 
rich pastoral country, opening a boundless future of great- 
ness to our Colony, which, from its commanding position on 
the seaboard, and Great Melbourne and Murray River 
Railway, must reap all the material advantages to be derived 
from supplying the wants and receiving the merchandise of 
the settlers, who are so- rapidly taking up the new country. 
Not oidy may this direct route possibly afford a lino for 
telegraphic communication, by Batavia and India with Eng- 
land, but our Exploration Committee can claim, by the 
labours of the explorers sent out on the main and subse- 
quent assistant expeditions, to have achieved the valuable 
result of showing the connection by a wide tract of fertile, 
well -grassed, and comparatively well-watered country between 
the lands discovered by Leichardt on the Burdekin, those of 
Burke towards Carpentaria, those discovered by Stuart 
towards Arnheim’s Land, and those of the two Gregory’s 
from North West Australia to the Northern parts of West 
Australia So rapid has been the occupation of this hitherto- 
unknown country, that on the east coast alone the sheep- 
stations; now taken up and stocked extend from the settled 
districts in an unbroken line to within one hundred miles of 
the Gulf of Carpentaria. 
The heroic success and melancholy death of Burke and 
Wills are known in every civilized part of the earth, but, 
from ignorance or forgetfulness of facts, the blame has been 
thrown on the Committee of such neglect or mismanage- 
ment as it was supposed had led to the death of those two 
lamented men. Although a member of the Exploration 
Committee myself, 1 think the feeling of indignation which 
prevented the Committee as a body from defending itself 
against those animadversions, is perhaps unfair to the public, 
which is never wilfully unjust or ungenerous, and I take 
this occasion to clear the Royal Society of blame by a 
simple statement of facts, the more willingly as they are 
not distinctly set forth in the published reports. 
It was said the Committee established no depot with 
stores at Cooper’s Creek, and hence the misfortune. 
The fact is, thoExpcdition started with ample stores and 
