APPENDICES.

APPENDIX A.

Instructions to leader.

Exploration Committee, Royal Society of Victoria, Melbourne, 18th August, 1860.

Sir,

I am directed by the Committee to convey to you the instructions and views which have been adopted in connection with the duties which devolve upon you as Leader of the party now organized to explore the interior of Australia.

The Committee having decided on Cooper’s Creek, of Sturt’s, as the basis of your operations, request that you will proceed thither, form a depot of provisions and stores, and make arrangements for keeping open a communication in your rear to the Darling, if in your opinion advisable; and thence to Melbourne, so that you may be enabled to keep the Committee informed of your movements, and receive in return the assistance in stores and advice of which you may stand in need.  Should you find that a better communication can be made by way of the South Australian Police Station, near Mount Serle, you will avail yourself of that means of writing to the Committee.

In your route to Cooper’s Creek, you will avail yourself of any opportunity that may present itself for examining and reporting on the character of the country east and west of the Darling.

You will make arrangements for carrying the stores to a point opposite Mount McPherson, which seems to the Committee to be the best point of departure from this river for Cooper’s Creek; and while the main body of the party is proceeding to that point you may have further opportunities of examining the country on either side of your route.

In your further progress from Mount McPherson towards Cooper’s Creek, the Committee also desires that you should make further detours to the right and left with the same object.

The object of the Committee in directing you to Cooper’s Creek, is, that you should explore the country intervening between it and Leichhardt’s track, south of the Gulf of Carpentaria, avoiding, as far as practicable, Sturt’s route on the west, and Gregory’s, down the Victoria, on the east.

To this object the Committee wishes you to devote your energies in the first instance; but should you determine the impracticability of this route you are desired to turn westward into the country recently discovered by Stuart, and connect his farthest point northward with Gregory’s farthest Southern Exploration in 1856 (Mount Wilson).

In proceeding from Cooper’s Creek to Stuart’s Country, you may find the Salt Marshes an obstacle to the progress of the camels; if so, it is supposed you will be able to avoid these marshes by turning to the northward as far as Eyre’s Creek, where there is permanent water, and going then westward to Stuart’s Farthest.

Should you, however, fail in connecting the two points of Stuart’s and Gregory’s Farthest, or should you ascertain that this space has been already traversed, you are requested if possible to connect your explorations with those of the younger Gregory, in the vicinity of Mount Gould, and thence you might proceed to Sharks’ Bay, or down the River Murchison, to the settlements in Western Australia.