One very deserving institution dedicated to the noble object of awakening a sense of the beautiful, and furthering the interests of science, is the Australian Museum. All that this glorious country presents of interesting and useful in the three great divisions of nature is here being gradually classified in scientific order, and displayed in elegant cases in spacious handsome apartments, the whole thrown open to the public for amusement and instruction, free of cost. Already an excellent start has been made with valuable collections of conchylia and birds, as well as numerous ethnographical specimens and fossil remains. The management of the Museum has been confided to the most distinguished scientific men of the colony,[7] and owing to the deep interest taken by these gentlemen in this truly national undertaking, the sphere of its activity is likely ere long to be extended to scientific publications, the appearance of which will be doubly valuable and important in a country which presents so many different objects for investigation and elucidation.
If, however, our knowledge of Australia and its black aboriginal tribes is as yet very scanty, it has not assuredly been due to any cold indifference on the part of the new settlers for the history of a country and a race of men who are rapidly disappearing from the face of the country. It is rather to be found in the physical conditions of the continent, and especially in the great scarcity of perennial springs. In fact, there is hardly any country, with the exception of Africa, the exploration of which has cost the lives of so many scientific travellers as this fifth quarter of the world. What manly devotion, ardour, and perseverance, characterize such names as Leichhardt, Oxley, Kennedy, Eyre, Mitchell, Cunningham, Strut, Babbage, Warburton, Stuart, Gregory, Selwyn, MacDonnell, &c.! And it may fill a German with honest pride, that one of his race has attained the pinnacle of scientific eminence here! The name of Leichhardt is the most popular and most highly honoured of the learned names in Australia. Repeatedly we heard him spoken of as the Australian Humboldt. Rendered all the more eager by the success of his first enterprise, and stimulated by the splendid Governmental reward of £10,000 for his last discoveries, the indefatigable explorer started from Sydney in 1848, on a second journey, in which he intended to examine Western Australia, by crossing from Moreton Bay overland, to the West Coast and Port Essington. This proved to be the close of his earthly career. All trace of the lamented traveller has been lost, and even the admirably equipped expedition sent out by the Colonial Government, in March, 1858, under the experienced conduct of Mr. Gregory, on the track of Leichhardt, spent long months in fruitless wandering, and returned without any more positive information as to the destiny of the sorely missed naturalist, except the conjecture that Leichhardt and his companions had fallen a victim not to the murderous hand of the natives, but to the inhospitable nature of the region they were traversing. They seemed to have left the Victoria at its junction with the Alice (where it was thought a trace of the travellers was discovered in some incisions made in the bark of some trees),[8] and then attempted, favoured by heavy storms and showers of rain, to get into the flat desert country on the north-west. As, however, the rain shortly afterwards ceased, the unfortunate travellers not merely ran short of water in prosecuting their dismal journey, but were prevented from returning, as the small quantity precipitated by a mere meteoric phenomenon would be exhausted in a few days, and it is not easy to suppose that such hardy, zealous, and experienced explorers would have failed to extricate themselves, had not their courage and physical powers been broken down and destroyed by privations of the most terrible nature.