anticipations as to your future success.  That Providence may guide you in your wanderings and crown your future labours with new laurels is the ardent wish of all on whose behalf I now address you.  Let me, however, beg that you will guard, against any unnecessary exposure to risk, that life in the preservation of which we all feel so deep a concern.  With the assurance of the gratitude, esteem, and admiration of my brother colonists, permit me now to present you with 854 pounds, being the proportion of the public subscription awarded to you.

Dr. Leichhardt (who was evidently deeply affected) said:  Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen, I thank you for the munificent gift with which you have honoured me—­I thank you for the congratulations for the past—­for your kind wishes for my approaching expedition. [Note. 1] I feel the more the weight of your generous liberality, as I am conscious how much your kindness has overvalued my deserts; but I shall try to render myself worthy of it; and I hope that the Almighty, who has so mercifully taken care of me on my former expedition, will grant me skill and strength to continue my explorations, and will render them equally successful and beneficial to this colony.  May his blessings attend the generous people who have shown, by the honours they have done me, how great an interest they take in the advancement of discovery.

Mr. C. Cowper then moved a vote of thanks to the Committee and their Secretary, which was acknowledged by Mr. R. Graham, when the business of the meeting closed.

Those who appreciate the value of Dr. Leichhardt’s scientific exploration of the country from Moreton Bay to Port Essington, and who feel any interest in his record of the difficulties of his enterprise, will be glad to learn that the Royal Geographical Society of London has recently awarded him the Queen’s Gold Medal, in acknowledgment of his services; and that the Royal Geographical Society of Paris has likewise adjudged him its Gold Medal of this year.

[Note 1.  The object of the new Expedition here alluded to, Is to explore the Interior of Australia, to discover the extent of Sturt’s Desert and the character of the Western and North-Western Coast, and to observe the gradual change in vegetation and animal life from one side of the Continent to the other.

Dr. Leichhardt does not expect to be able to accomplish this overland journey to Swan River, in less than two years and a half.  According to a letter written by him on the eve of his departure (Dec. 6, 1846); his party consisted of six whites, and two blacks; he had purchased thirteen mules, twelve horses, and two hundred and seventy goats; and bad received forty oxen, three mules, and two horses, as presents.  He then purposed to travel over his old route, as far as Peak Range, and then to shape his course westwards; but thought it not impossible, as his course depends on water, that be should be obliged to reach the Gulf of Carpentaria, and then to follow up some river to its source.—­Ed.]