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12 acquired (and to those given in the above list several more might be added), should be familiar to those who now enjoy the benefits resulting from them. From 1850 exploration has been continued on a more extended scale, in a more systematic method, with more definite ends, at longer intervals, and for the most part by professional surveyors.

A. Gregory was occupied during the years 1852 and 1853 in the valleys of the Blackwood and Gordon, and made a short expedition from the Murchison to Sharks Bay. In 1854, surveyor Robert Austin with a large party, including several young volunteers since well known in the Colony, left the valley of the Avon, and proceeding East and North, reached Mt. Magnet, in the Lake district, nearly 300 miles due East from the mouth of the Murchison, and thence by a North-West course entered the upper basins of that river, and (after making vain attempts to reach the Gascoigne, where Mr. G. Phillips, with supplies sent by sea, awaited him) was obliged, with much suffering, to return, and with great difficulty reached the river. It was from this journey that some knowledge of the country about the head waters of the Murchison, now being so rapidly taken up for pastoral purposes, was first obtained. F. H. Gregory was on the Murchison in 1857, and the next year traced the courses of the Lyons and Gascoigne Rivers to the sea, and, by his discoveries, opened an easy route overland to the North-West coast, along which both sheep and cattle were driven by E. T. Hooley without difficulty in 1865.

In 1861, F. H. Gregory, landing with a party at Nicol Bay, explored the valleys of the Fortescue, Ashburton, Shirlock, Yule, and DeGrey rivers as far as Mt. Macpherson at the source of the Oakover; this led