9 
and 18 lbs. of ■wool; great gratitude is therefore due to the enlightened rulers of that colony, 
for their liberality in adding a pure alpaca ram to our flock, with a view to the improvement 
of the breed, the fleece of ours being otherwise scarcely of any mercantile value. Should, as 
might be expected, the Angora goats thrive in many of the scrubby grassless districts of our 
ranges, where neither sheep nor cattle prosper, an inestimable addition will be made to the 
pastoral resources of the colony, and many districts now unoccupied, may become thereby 
available for settlement. Both Angora goats and alpacas, it may be added, prove here 
remarkably prolific. 
For the temporary reception of future importations of fish, especially salmon, a 
series of tanks is now under construction, through which, by the appliance of mill-work, 
a constant current of river water will be secured ; for although it is intended to locate the 
principal supply of salmom ova at once after arrival in the elevated and artificially protected 
shallows of rivers rising in our Alps, it will be still desirable that also an attempt should be 
made to hatch them on our ground, and to rear some of the young fish for experiment, and 
eventual distribution to other localities of this counti*y. 
To these manifold obligations has been added by the military officers another, 
deserving of high praise, namely, the frequent attendance of the excellent regimental 
band at the gardens. 
A few weeks of the previous summer were devoted by the Government botanist to 
researches into the vegetation of the mountains along the McAllister river. The tributaries 
of the latter stream were found on that occasion to traverse a country of rather extensive 
fertility and, to judge by its physical aspect, of auriferous formation. Some botanical 
novelties, enumerated in the appendix, were discovered and secured for the herbarium. In 
this journey, the main range of the South Western Alps was ascertained to extend in an 
almost semi-elliptical line from Mount Wellington to Mount Useful, at an elevation varying 
from 4000 to 5000 feet, only the northern part of this mountain tract, encircling the 
sources of the McAllister, being more depressed and somewhat broken. From several 
high mountains, then ascended for the fii’st' time, bearings were secured to elevations 
included in the trigonometrical survey. From the more elevated western portion of 
these mountains, now designated on the chart as the Barkly Ranges, a leading spur will 
in all probability be found to extend to the hitherto unapproached alpine elevations of 
Mount Baw Baw. 
This question which I left during my first visit unsolved I am anxious to set at 
rest during the next season. Mount Wellington, inasmuch as it can be reached by a 
path accessible to horses from the Avon Ranges, may be regarded as the southern key of 
the Australian Alps, from whence along the crest of the main ramifications of the high land a 
journey with horses seems possible in most directions. Otherwise, the dense underwood of 
the less lofty ranges, stretching between the alpine tract and the low land, frustrates any 
attempt to traverse the country between the Yarra sources and Gipps Land without cutting 
previously tracts through the jungle, whereas the main range, at elevations exceeding 4000 
feet, is usually destitute of these impediments. 
It is my duty to bear, on this occasion, public acknowledgment to the generous aid 
which in performing this journey I experienced from Angus McMillan, Fsq., M.L.A., the 
discoverer of Gipps Land, who not only provided six horses and almost all other requisites for 
this excursion, but also facilitated it, whilst sharing in it, by his intimate knowledge of the 
surrounding country. The botanical examination of Victoria, although now for the greater 
part completed, has yet to be extended to the country towards Lake Hindmarsh, to Mount 
Baw Baw, and to the most eastern part of the colony about Cape Howe. 
Ten numbers of the Fragmenta Phytographice Australim are issued, comprising the 
diagnoses of nearly 500 new or rare plants contained in our collection. This publication is 
illustrated by ten plates drawn by Messrs. Becker and Schoenfeld ; whilst to botanical science 
in general it furnishes a series of new observations, it affords the opportunity o pu ic y 
No, 37, b. 
