Section E. 
GEOGRAPHY. 
ADDRESS BY THE PRESIDENT, 
BARON YON MUELLER, K.C.M.Gr., M. & PR. D., 
LL.D., E.R.S. 
THE COMMERCE OF AUSTRALIA WITH NEIGHBOURING- 
COUNTRIES IN RELATION TO GEOGRAPHY. 
In the first instance the duty devolves on me to express the sense 
of deep gratitude for the honour shown me by the Queensland Council 
of the Australian Association in calling on me to open the proceedings 
in the Geographic Section of the Brisbane meeting, and I am all the 
more impressed with the significance of the position accorded me, as 
your venerable President counts among the leading geographers of our 
time. It is becoming, therefore, that I should first of all pay homage 
to my revered leader, under whom I had the honour to serve in an 
extensive geographic enterprise well nigh, forty years ago, when he, as 
the first, penetrated, and with horses only, into Central Australia from 
the north, and disclosed the northern termination of the desert gold 
country, of which Coolgardie is the southern limitation, and when, for 
the first time, the Australian continent was crossed from north-west to 
south-east. But Mr. Gregory, of whose presidency the meeting must 
be very proud, has many other claims on your recognition. Expedi- 
tions of his reach back into the first half of this century, when he 
began independent territorial exploration in West Australia, under 
such privations and scantiness of resources, at that early colonisation 
period, as cannot readily be realised by the thoughts of the present 
generation. With Eyre, the hero of 1840 and 1841 on Australian 
geographic fields, who, from a recent letter to myself, continues to 
maintain a most lively interest in explorations, and with Sir George 
Grey, who won his spurs still somewhat earlier, our President is one 
in the Nestor-Trio of Australian exploring leaders, while Dr. 
J. H. Browne, the only officer accompanying Captain Sturt in 
the first advance into Central Australia from the south as far as 
Eyre’s Creek, can still enjoy in the South Australian metropolis the 
triumph of that achievement. Of Leichhardt’s ever memorable first 
expedition of 1844-1845, a prominent member, my friend Mr. Roper, 
is, by the mercy of Divine Providence, yet, as a geographic worthy, 
among the living at our time. Mr. Gregory, however, can furthermore 
be proud of having held, irrespective of legislative duties, the prominent 
position of Surveyor- General through those three decades, during 
