Page:Tracks of McKinlay and party across Australia.djvu/19

 INTRODUCTORY VIEW

MORE RECENT AUSTRALIAN EXPLORATORY EXPEDITIONS AND THEIR RESULTS.

present work records one of several successful expeditions that have lately resolved for us the long standing problem of Central Australia. "Who shall cross this great 'Terra Australis' from sea to sea?" was a question so long before our eyes, and so long unanswered, that we did not expect so overwhelming a response as the last three years have given. And yet, within that brief interval, this previously unattainable result has been accomplished no less than six times over, if we regard Stuart's first two journeys as a virtual crossing of the country; a distinction we can hardly withhold from them, although neither of them quite crosses Australia, as was the case with the third. So much for a bold pioneering,