to the Settlement of the North-West coast, as it is still called. This year, also, the brothers Dempster made explorations to the East of Northam, and from the South coast to the Lake district, in which H. M. Lefroy made a still more extended exploration in 1863, in consequence of which, surveyor Hunt was sent with a party organised for well digging and to make a road by which cattle might be taken into it. Messrs. Cook and Clarkson were exploring its Northern limits at the same time.
In 1864, Austin, with Dr. Martin and others, entered the mouth of the Glenelg and explored the Western portion of the basin of that river as Grey had the Eastern; and, a settlement having been formed at Roebuck Bay, surveyor James Cowle traversed the country between that place and Nickol Bay. In 1870, surveyor John Forrest traced the coast from Albany to Eucla, and proceeded from thence to Adelaide, without suffering from want of water as Eyre had done.
Of the interior of the country nothing was known as yet beyond the Lake district, but in 1856 A. Gregory, with a party from Queensland, entered the territory of Western Australia from the North-East and found Sturt's Creek in a sandy desert; and—reports respecting white men, supposed to relate to Leichardt and his party, of whose fate nothing is known, having been received from the natives of the Lake district,—in 1869 John Forrest extended his search to the Eastward of Champion Bay as far as the 123rd meridian, and in 1871 his brother Alexander somewhat further beyond Hampden Plains. In 1872, surveyor W. C. Gosse attempted to cross from South Australia, but was driven back by want of water before reaching the 126th meridian. Colonel Warburton, however, the year
