[3] The mean of thermometrical readings on the north coast is 80°.6 Fahr.;—at Port McQuarrie, in S.E. Australia (31° S.), 68° Fahr.; at Port Jackson (34° S.) 66°.5 Fahr.; at Port Philip on the south coast (33° S.), 61°.3 Fahr.; at Perth on the west coast (32° S.) 62°.6 to 64°.4 Fahr. The annual rain-fall in New South Wales is 45 inches.
[4] The total superficial area of the somewhat oval-shaped continent lying between 10° and 45° S. and 112° and 154° E., is about 2,100,000 geographical square miles in extent, the coast outline of which is about 7000 miles, so that for each mile of coast there are about 300 square miles of surface, or rather more than double the proportion in Europe. The united English population of the different colonies founded in Australia (exclusive of Tasmania or Van Diemen's Land) and New Zealand amounts to about 1,400,000 souls. Within twenty years the population has increased six-fold, and the value of the exports twenty-fold.
[5] The fundamental principle of the University is, "The association of students without respect of religious creed, in the cultivation of secular knowledge." (See Sydney University Calendar for 1858, p. 15.)
[6] The fixed salary of the teacher varies from £120 to £140 per annum.
[7] At the period of our visit to the colony, the post of secretary was filled by Mr. G. French Angus, distinguished as an artist, and widely known for his valuable ethnological studies upon the Caffers, New Zealanders, and South Australian aborigines. Unfortunately his health gave way, owing to his exertions, and he now lives in retirement at Collingwood, in South Australia, where however he is still animated by the most intense zeal for science.
[8] The expedition discovered on the 21st April, 1858, in 24° 35′ S. and 146° 6′ W., an ash tree, two feet in diameter, on whose huge trunk the letter L had been deeply cut. Close by there were everywhere traces of a regular encampment, and an impression pretty universally prevailed that Leichhardt and his companions had camped here, and had cut this mark to indicate it. One of the oldest missionaries of Western Australia, the venerable Mr. C. Threlkeld, objected, however, to this view that the letter L, of which so much was spoken, had in all probability been made by one of the youthful natives, who when learning to read and write are in the habit of cutting the letters on the trees. We present here the precise passage of the text of a letter of Dr. Threlkeld's to us:—"I send you a spelling-book, that Billy Blue, one of the black boys, used to have, when he was learning to read and write. He and others used to go into the bush, and cut the letters of the alphabet on the barks of the trees, and Brown, an aboriginal lad, who went with the unfortunate Leichhardt, used to do the same. I suspect that he cut the celebrated L on the tree about which there is so much talk at the present time."
[9] One of the most appalling of these was that undertaken in April, 1848, by surveyor E. B. Kennedy, along the strip of land between Cape York and Rockingham Bay in Northern Australia, whose melancholy fate is described by one of the survivors, Mr. Carron, a botanist, in a not less simple than affecting manner. "When we first started everything went on well, and the most brilliant anticipations were indulged, although there were numerous obstacles to be overcome, and the few natives we encountered were invariably hostile. Gradually, however, provisions began to fail; sickness and loss of strength succeeded, while the prospect of reaching our goal grew less and less. The further north we got, as the hot season was now setting in, the more frequently did we find the forest rivulets dried up, so that we had for days to bear up against an almost maddening thirst. The horses which accompanied the expedition gradually sank from exhaustion." Almost every day Carron's journal mentions one or the other horse giving in of fatigue, when they were compelled for want of further provision to eat its flesh during the next two days. That of the last was conveyed along by the travellers in sacks, made from the skin of the animal itself. Whenever they encountered natives, these proved hostile, and assailed the little caravan with spears. Some of them indeed were more friendly, and traded with the travellers, but less out of sincere hospitality than with the hope of taking them in, and getting them unawares into their power. Thus, on one occasion a number of tall, well-made, powerful men and women made their appearance, and offered them some fish, which they themselves refused to eat owing to its putrified state. Hardly had the travellers approached it, unsuspicious of evil, when a cloud of spears cleft the air with a whistling noise, and the scene, hitherto so friendly and peaceable, became at once a scene of blood and confusion. However, the spear-men seemed to have no great dexterity; they usually missed their mark, whereas the flints and double-barrels of the whites did deadly execution. One however proved more fatal than the rest, and killed Mr. Kennedy, the chief of the party. They were now only a few days distant from Cape York, the goal of their labours, whence a Government ship was to convey the leader and his party back to Sydney. But the survivors were also all but exhausted with the terrible fatigues of their journey. Only three out of the fourteen survived, and these were reduced almost to skeletons. Carron's elbow-bone of the right arm, and also the bone of the right hip, were through the skin! (Narrative of an Expedition undertaken under the direction of the late Mr. Assistant Surveyor, E. B. Kennedy, for the Exploration of the Country lying between Rockingham Bay and Cape York; by W. Carron, one of the survivors of the Expedition. Sydney, 1849.)
Still more lamentable was the fate of the last and most important of these expeditions, which in 1861 succeeded in crossing the Australian continent from the north frontier of South Australia to Carpentaria, and back to Cooper's Creek, in which, unfortunately, the travellers missed the dépôt troop that had been sent to their assistance, and the entire party, including Messrs. Burke, Wills, and Gray, lost their lives, only one of their number, King, escaping to tell their sad fate. (Vide Appendix.)
[10] Government has bethought itself of a plan for facilitating discoveries in the interior, and rendering them more profitable by importing from Egypt into Australia camels and dromedaries, chiefly of the breed known as El Hura, as these animals can easily get over 60 to 80 miles per diem, and can moreover dispense with water for weeks together.
[11] During a visit which our naturalists paid to Dr. Bennett they were shown a young pair of the Morok (Casuarius Bennetti), discovered not long since at New Britain, which he intended to present to the Zoological Society of London for exhibition at the Regent's Park. What is very remarkable in this singular bird is the shape of the bill, which is curved in the male, but almost straight in the female.