and re-crossed, and future enterprise was soon to expend itself upon the
western half.

So far the results arrived at had been most satisfactory. Not much over
forty years after Oxley's gloomy prediction of the future of the
interior, country had been found surpassing in richness any that was then
known. The pathways for the pioneers had been marked out, and a few more
years was to see the whole of the continent up to the western boundary of
Queensland the busy scene of pastoral industry.

Most noticeable in the history we have just recounted is the persistent
manner in which each succeeding explorer found in all new discoveries the
fulfillment of some pet theory. To the men brought up in the old school
of belief in the central desert, every fresh advance into the interior
was only pushing the desert back a step; it was there still, and,
according to some, it is there now. Others who believed in the great
river theory, imagined its source in the fresh discovery of every inland
river; and those who pinned their faith on a central range, accepted the
low broken ridges of the M'Donnel Ranges as the leading spurs.

But the discoveries of the luxuriant new herbage and edible shrubs of the
interior were the greatest stumbling block to all. That the much-despised
SALSOLEA and other shrubs should be coveted and sought after; that the
bugbear of Oxley, the ACACIA PENDULA, should now be held to indicate good
country was inconceivable; and when, above everything, the most
fondly cherished of all delusions, that in the torrid north the sheep's
wool would turn to hair, had to be given up, it was quite evident that a
new order of belief would soon be entertained.

Writers, however, were still found to argue that things must be after the