Government Library contains the best collection extant, but even there it has been deemed necessary to adopt restrictive regulations, with the view of giving the books a longer lease of existence. This scarcity of the sources of information, and these restrictions which fence in the few that remain, may be accepted as a sufficient plea for the effort here made to popularize the knowledge they contain. But I would warn the reader not to expect from this small volume what it does not profess to give. In no sense does it pretend to be elaborate or exhaustive. I have had to study brevity for another reason than its being the soul of wit. It would have been a pleasant task to write long descriptions of Australian scenery, and to follow the explorers even into the by-paths of their journeys; but the result would have been just what I have had to avoid—a bulky volume. Yet, such as it is, I hope the book will be found acceptable to the man of business, who can neither afford to be ignorant of this subject nor find time to enter into its minutiæ; to the youth of our country, who cannot obtain access to the original sources; and to the general reader, who desires to be told in simple, artless language the main outlines of this fascinating story.
Having written on a subject in no way connected with my profession, I may be allowed to say, in a word, how my thoughts came to be diverted into this channel. Probably they would never have been so directed to any great extent had it not happened that the path of duty led me into the tracks of several of
