exploring the whole of this vast continent. (Applause.)

The Reverend Dr. Cairns, who was called upon to move the first
resolution, remarked that this was a magnificent meeting, and that he had
seldom been more delighted in the course of a long life. (Applause.) When
Mr. McKinlay was received by the Royal Society he (Dr. Cairns) made the
very natural remark that he supposed he would receive a welcome from the
public of Melbourne (hear, hear) that, however cordial might be the
welcome extended to him and to Mr. Landsborough by private committees or
private societies, the community at large had a right to express their
feelings, and in the most public manner to give a welcome to those
successful explorers. (Applause.) He thought then, as he thought now,
that in making that remark he not only expressed his own feelings but the
feelings of the community in general. A very ill-natured notice of his
opinion and conduct in the matter appeared in The Argus of that morning,
but for what purpose it had been written he was unable to say. He
rejoiced in the present meeting, however, as the best of all possible
answers to such a piece of invidiousness. (Hear.) One of the
characteristic signs of the present age was the very great progress of
discovery in opening up regions of the earth which had hitherto been
hermetically sealed even to the eye of intelligence. It was a very
suggestive fact to his mind that the successful exploration of Central
Africa and the great Australian Continent had been reserved for the
present day, that until now these immense dominions had been unknown
lands to the civilised world; and that not until the latter half of the
nineteenth century had the honour been conferred on the enterprising sons
of that wonderful little island far away in the north sea--peopled by
Christian Britons--of penetrating the mystery, and finding out that,
instead of stony deserts and inhospitable wilds, those countries
contained luxuriant fields, abundant waters, and balmy woods--inviting