years later an effort of a more promising character was made by a botanist of the name of Cayley, who pushed his way into the heart of the mountains as far as the present Numantia, where he erected a cairn of stones to mark the furthest limit of exploration to the west. He left his rude monument without a name, but Governor Macquarie, in a sportive mood, called it "Cayley's Repulse," and by this brand it is still remembered by old colonists. The late Dr. Lang thus refers to it in his "History":—"The place was pointed out to me by a respectable settler of the Bathurst district on crossing the mountains for the first time in the year 1826. It is certainly a most remarkable locality, nothing being visible in any direction but immense masses of weather-beaten sandstone rocks, towering over each other in all the sublimity of desolation; quite a deep chasm, intersecting a lofty ridge covered with blasted trees, seems to present an insurmountable barrier to all further progress."
At this outpost discovery appears to have stood still for a considerable period. If further attempts were entered on in the succeeding years very little has been said about them. The settlers must have made up their minds for the time being to submit to the inevitable and reconcile themselves to the situation with the best consolation they could find. But a pressing emergency assailed them before long which aroused the slumbering energy and led to another assault on the western ramparts. A continuous drought had succeeded equally disastrous floods in
