lecting them Fellows of the Society, and by awarding
them the Murchison medal.

Frank Jardine was for some period Government Resident at Thursday Island,
whither the settlement has been removed; but of late he has resided at
his own station at Somerset, and engaged in pearl-shelling. Alec entered
the Queensland civil service, as Roads Engineer, and in that capacity did
much important work in the construction of the roads of that State. In
1871 and 1872, he designed and constructed the road and railway-bridge
over the Dawson River, and in 1890 he became Engineer-in-Chief for
Harbours and Rivers.

But the scrubby and hilly nature of the country on Cape York militated
against its speedy settlement, and it needed the lure of gold to induce
men to risk their lives in a land with such hostile inhabitants. In 1872
the Queensland Government decided upon another exploration of the neck of
land that forms the northern-most point of Australia. More than eight
years had elapsed since the Jardines had made their dashing journey; but
their report, coupled with Kennedy's fate, did not offer much temptation
to follow up their footsteps. There was, however, a tract of country near
the base of the Peninsula still comparatively unknown; and a party was
organised and placed under the leadership of William Hann. Hann was a
native of Wiltshire, who had come out to the south of Victoria with his
parents at an early age. He was afterwards one of the pioneer squatters
of the Burdekin, in which river his father was drowned. The object of the
trip was to examine the country as far as the 14th parallel South, with a
special view to its mineral resources. The discovery of gold having
extended so far north in Queensland had raised a hope that its existence
would be traced along the promontory. Hann had with him Taylor as
geologist, and Dr. Tate as botanist, the latter being a survivor of the
melancholy Maria expedition to New Guinea. Apparently his ardour for
exploration had not been cooled by the narrow escape he had then
experienced.

The party left Fossilbrook station on the creek of the same name, a
tributary of the Lynd, north of the initial point of the Jardine
expedition. Crossing much rugged and broken country, they found two
rivers running into the Mitchell, and named them the Tate and the Walsh.

From the Walsh, the party proceeded to the upper course of the Mitchell,
and crossing it, struck a creek, marked on Kennedy's map as "creek ni