Miscellanea . 
357 
few degrees farther N. the cordillera runs close along the sea 
coast, so does it seem to follow that if the explorers are to depend 
upon any supply of water flowing from that chain, they would 
necessarily have to traverse several hundred miles of land before 
they fell in with it. The case is simply this : granted the cor- 
derilla be found to throw off waters to the W. as well as to the 
E., to what distance westward will they run before they are 
absorbed or evaporated in the sandy interior deserts ? If we are 
to reason after the analogies of all other parts of this continent, it 
is only (using a nautical term) by “ hugging” this chain that a 
successful march can be accomplished. Arguing, therefore, from 
the data before them, some shrewd practical geographers, in¬ 
cluding Mr. Arrowsmith, differ from Sir Thomas Mitchell and 
the committee of Sydney, and give a preference to an advance 
from the well provided settlement of Moreton Bay; for then by 
obliquely traversing the adjacent cordillera, the expedition would 
at once be 3 9 of latitude to the N. of Fort Bourke, and conse¬ 
quently so much nearer their ultimate point of destination, the 
mouth of Albert's River, in the Gulf of Carpentaria. Other per¬ 
sons, and among them I may mention Captain Owen Stanley, as 
well as his friend Captain Stokes, are of opinion that separate 
expeditions should be sent across the cordillera from different 
parts of the coast, whereby the nature of the intervening tract on 
the western slopes of the chain could be made known before so 
long an interior march was hazarded. Others again may say 
with our member, Mr. Gowen, that a thorough exploration of the 
interior of Australia, will never be effected until we import thither 
camels from an eastern possession, and thus at once get rid of the 
vast difficulties attending the want of water. 
All these points are doubtless well worthy of consideration; but 
if I venture to express my own opinion, I should say that the best 
practical and geographical results will follow from the researches 
°f an expedition, purposely fitted out, simultaneously to explore 
the cordillera itself, by land and by sea, from the points to which 
the researches of Cunningham have carried us to Torres Straits. 
Already, through the labours of that individual and M. Streleski, 
half the cordillera is known and mapped; why not then complete 
