y, which conveyed himself and
party from Brisbane, was wrecked on Hardy's Island. However, a few days
afterwards, they were relieved by Captain Norman of the Victoria. Through
the exertions of Captain Norman, his officers, and crew the Firefly was
towed off the reef and the horses were reshipped and taken on to
Carpentaria. It had been supposed hitherto that the Albert River was not
a good place for landing horses; but the Firefly, a vessel of 200 tons,
went twenty miles up that river and the horses were landed without
difficulty, in fact they walked ashore. He was delighted to find so fine
a country. He had had twenty years experience of Australia, and he had
never seen better country for stock than he found on the shores of the
Gulf of Carpentaria. His mission was to search for Burke and his
companions, but he could not shut his eyes to the fact that there was a
fine country before them, and that country lying idle--a country, which
through the exertions of Burke and his companions, had been opened to the
world. (Hear.) The pastoral interest was a great interest still in
Australia; and he held it to be a great pity that the stock of the
country should be boiled down for tallow when Australia is the finest
country in the world for growing wool. He hoped that the discoveries made
through the instrumentality of the Royal Society would tend to prevent
this. He would now point out the route which he took in search of Burke
and his party. In his first expedition he proceeded in the direction of
Central Mount Stuart, with the view of trying to discover whether Burke
had gone on Stuart's route; he succeeded in travelling about 210 miles,
the first 100 of which he followed up a running stream, but after leaving
its source he lost much time from the scarcity of water; for this reason,
and the precious loss of time caused by the wreck of the Firefly, he
deemed it prudent to return to the depot; this course was adopted with
much regret, as the wet season had commenced, a continuance of which for
two or three weeks would probably have enabled him to have pursued the
route originally intended in search of the traces of Burke. His first
impression regarding the stream referred to was that it was created by
rain, but as it was evident that no rain had fallen for months he
concluded that this idea was incorrect. He afterwards discovered that it
owed its source to springs of a kind which he had never before met with,
the stream from whic