May 24 , 1858 .] 
AUSTRALIA. 
311 
Meanwhile, I would bring to your recollection that there has 
been read before us, by our Associate, Mr. John Yeats, an able 
paper on New Guinea, being a translation from the Dutch of 
Dr. Muller. That scientific traveller proceeded, in the quality of 
naturalist, with a Dutch expedition in the year 1835, and his 
account of the part of the great island which he saw is by far the 
best which has ever been given to the public. 
The third paper is that of Lieutenant de Crespigny, r.n., who 
proceeded to Borneo, recommended to our distinguished Medallist 
Sir James Brooke by our late President, Admiral Beechey. Lieu- 
tenant de Crespigny gives, in a letter to our Secretary, an intelligent 
account of a river and country at the extreme northern end of Borneo, 
probably never seen, and certainly never before described, by an 
European. 
Australia . — We cannot often expect to grasp so much fresh geo- 
graphical knowledge respecting this vast country of British occupa- 
tion as was laid before us last year by Gregory and his associates. 
Still, in respect to that portion of Northern or Tropical Australia in 
which that expedition first disembarked, and was for some time 
encamped, many interesting and new details have been produced 
by Mr. Wilson, the geologist, who has recently returned to England. 
Having had charge of the camp whilst Mr. Gregory made his first 
movement southward and ascertained the existence of a saline 
interior desert, this gentleman lost no opportunity of surveying 
accurately certain tracts around him, by scanning the nature of the 
rocks, the botanical products of the soil, and also by observing the 
natives and lower animals which inhabit the region watered by the 
Yictoria and its affluents. His companion Dr. Ferdinand Mueller, 
the botanist of the expedition, who was also stationed in the camp of 
■which Mr. Wilson had the charge, thus writes to me from Melbourne 
respecting him : “ I feel it my duty to bear testimony that his exer- 
tions in the general duties of the expedition, whilst commanding at 
the main camp, were praiseworthy in the highest degree.” * 
After laying down the topography on maps, accompanied by 
pencil sketches, which give us a fair conception of the horizontal 
ridges of sandstone and trap rock with occasional limestone, the 
author estimates that there are tracts of not less than five millions 
of acres in extent, which, being covered by the richest grasses and 
* I may also record the testimony of Mr. Humpherey, a volunteer attached to 
the expedition, in favour of Mr. Wilson, 
VOL. II, 2 B 
