Oxley was afterwards sent to explore the course of the Macquarie River, but was as little successful in this as in his former effort. The river flowed into a wide marsh, some thirty or forty miles long, and he was forced to abandon his purpose; he started for the eastern coast, crossed the New England Range, and descended the long woodland slopes to the sea, discovering on his way the river Hastings.
#2. Allan Cunningham.#--Several important discoveries were effected by an enthusiastic botanist named Allan Cunningham, who, in his search for new plants, succeeded in opening up country which had been previously unknown. In 1825 he found a passage over the Liverpool Range, through a wild and picturesque gap, which he called the Pandora Pass; and on the other side of the mountains he discovered the fine pastoral lands of the Liverpool Plains and the Darling Downs, which are watered by three branches of the Upper Darling--the Peel, the Gwydir, and the Dumaresq. The squatters were quick to take advantage of these discoveries; and, after a year or two, this district was covered with great flocks of sheep. It was here that the Australian Agricultural Company formed their great stations already referred to.