friends;—he may still be there, pining amidst savages from day to day, and from year to year, for succour from an ungrateful country. From such an expedition we should learn whether Leichardt crossed the Albert, the sources of which he was most desirous to explore.
How much is it to be deplored that the vast sums of money devoted to the discovery of the north-western passage has not been expended on the interior of the continent of Australia, surely of more importance to science, and of greater advantage to mankind! Sad, indeed, it appears to us, that those noble and gallant men whose bones are now scattered in the icy regions of the Northern Pole, whose energy and courage met with such an untimely end, were not directed to the shores of this continent, where, by their researches and scientific labours, they might have laid the foundation stones for the greatness of future nations!
Considering the great interest which the British possess in Australia, it is a subject of no less astonishment than regret, that so large a portion of the continent should remain to this day a terra incognita. The highest authorities in Australian geography have frequently pointed to the promising rivers which enter the Gulf of Carpentaria, as the certain means of internal communication; and if New South Wales, Victoria, and South Australia, would combine together, with the co-operation and vast resources at the command of the mother coun-
