Father Salvado then proposed to open a School of Music at Perth. Numbers of pupils offered themselves, but happily the Propaganda sent money to Dr. Brady with a promise of more. The music school was not opened, for Father Salvado had now sufficient funds to begin the erection of a building for the monastery. On the 1st March, 1847, the foundation-stone of New Norcia was laid upon a medal of St. Benedict. The structure was raised by volunteer labour from Perth. The Government presented thirty additional acres of land to the Mission, with the use of a thousand acres more for despasturingdepasturing stock.
Cultivation was carried on; sheep and cattle were obtained as a nucleus for future flocks and herds; allotments of land were given to the natives, who apparently eagerly tilled them and seemed at first proud of their new possessions. Any work done specially by them for the Mission was paid for, and upon the advice of the Fathers the money was left in their hands. When sufficient was accumulated for one man, a cow, pig, or sheep was purchased for him.
Thus the New Norcia Mission was established, and the reverend fathers anxiously endeavoured to illuminate the darkened minds of the natives. They taught them useful mental lessons, laboured among them in the fields, roamed the woods with them, and tried to so civilise them as to inculcate a desire for real property in their minds. Out of the initiatory struggles and vicissitudes there came the most hopeful and valuable institution established in Australia. That it was not more permanently successful in "civilising" the aborigines was not the fault of the brave efforts of the high-minded Fathers.
The census taken in 1848 recorded that there were then in the colony 3,063 adherents of the Church of England, 276 Wesleyans, 187 Independents, and 377 Roman Catholics.
Exploration discovered some promising tracts of country between the years 1843 and 1848. Until 1843 research of this nature had for a period been followed with little energy, and for subsequent periods no expeditions went out. Geographers in the different colonies persisted in believing that the interior of Australia was occupied by a large sea. So far as Western Australians were concerned the tales told by natives lent additional likelihood to such being the case. Not many days' journey inland, they said, was a sea which none of them had walked around. But they might start from King George's Sound, strike the great sea, and walk round it to King George's Sound again. The popular assumption among local people seemed to be that this sea was nearly connected with Spencer's Gulf, in South Australia. It was an important question, and an interesting.
Messrs. Henry Landor and H. M. Lefroy were ambitious to discover the mysterious water. On 9th January, 1843, they left York with the native, Cowit, to look for it in the country to the south and south-east; but, though they struggled over scores of miles under exceeding great difficulties, they found no sea. Cowit was supposed to act as interpreter and to shoot kangaroos. For ten miles the little party held to the Albany Road; then they turned south-east into the Corbiding country. From Corbiding they proceeded to a place called by the natives Nymbatilling, and on to the Hotham River. Through rain and rough country they searched. First they examined Carbal—a fertile valley; beyond was Narjaling, with its grassy floors trending for miles. Lake Byriering was reached on 14th January, and round about were lakes so numerous that they might well think they were on the borders of an inland sea. From a hill-top, report the explorers, were observed a treeless plain of sand and scrub and a lake studded with islands in varied forms: they had never seen land and water so tastefully mingled. Eastwards they passed a series of salt lakes—Norring, Quiliding, Byriering, Quabing, Barkiering, Quiliwhirring, Goondering, Dambeling, and others. A river come upon was named Landor; a pool, the Cowit, and a second river, Lefroy. Hot scrubby repellant plains, upon which was no water, and a wretched class of country generally, were surveyed, and a point on the Williams River was reached. Altogether, the good country traversed was as nothing in extent to the bad. From the Williams River they went back to York.
Mr. Drummond still pursued his studies in botany, and traversed extensive areas in search of specimens. For his splendid work in this direction, Her Majesty awarded him an honorarium of £200. While exploiting country around Toodyay in 1844 he came upon two fine tracts of land hitherto unknown. These were situated about 50 miles north-east of Toodyay, and were described as of considerable extent and fertile, although want of water was a drawback. The most interesting feature about them was the discovery of bones of oxen—principally skulls—scattered over different parts of the surface. The skulls bore particularly wide branching horns, a peculiarity which Drummond said was not possessed by cattle imported into Western Australia by local colonists. Natives informed him that oxen visited those parts long before the foundation of the colony, and one man—about forty years old—remembered when he was but a child that his father had killed cattle there. Mr. Drummond conjectured that these cattle had slowly pushed over the continent from New South Wales.
Mr. Clark in the same year made excursions to the southern country examining the land at Nornalup and Deep River. The soil promised good results from cultivation, while the timber was described as magnificent. Mr. H. Landor visited those places late in 1844 or early in 1845, and depicted in enthusiastic terms the dimensions of the timber resources. Had he not seen them, he wrote, he could never have believed that there were such tall trees in the world. The mahogany and blue gum were not to be surpassed anywhere in the discovered parts of the colony—information which gave special pleasure to West Australians in view of their budding timber trade.
Those eager, hardy travellers, the Gregory brothers, began their exploring careers in 1846. For about eighteen months no interest was taken in exploration, but the Gregorys stimulated research work. On August 4, 1846, Messrs. A. C., F. T., and H. C. Gregory left Perth for Lake Brown, north-east of Toodyay, and the elevated sandy ridges beyond. Yule's farm at Boyeen Spring, beyond Toodyay, was passed on the 7th, and Captain Scully's land at Bolgart Spring was soon crossed. Thenceforward, the sandy, sterile flats, granite ridges, and dense thickets supplied but a melancholy tour. Innumerable difficult thickets of stunted acacia, cypress, and eucalypti were penetrated, Lake Brown (dry) was passed, and the furthest point eastwards yet surveyed was reached on 17th August. Near by, in latitude 30° 12' 28" and longitude 119° 16' 10", were the dry beds of salt lakes, uninviting trap hills, and a redeemless samphire flat. To go further east seemed vain, and the brothers struck for the west and north-west towards the coast and the Champion Bay district. Along their route were steep white cliffs, high sandstone cliffs, and granite hills, surrounded by expansive wastes. On the 25th they stood on the shore of an immense salt lake,
