12. In close connexion with the Survey and Lands Department is the topic of exploration. So soon as possible after my first arrival, I took upon myself to send Mr. John Forrest overland to Adelaide, along the shores of the Great Bight, nearly on the line of Mr. Eyre's route in 1841. I did this before the introduction of representative government, and it is right to say that I knew that I could not have got a vote for it. I felt that this was the last act of an expiring autocratic regime, and I believe it was one of the least popular of my acts; but certainly no small sum of public money has been expended with greater results--for, as I hoped, Mr. Forrest's expedition has bridged the gap that separated West Australia from the other colonies, has led to settlement on the shores of the Great Bight, and to the connexion of this colony with the rest of the world by electric telegraph. I never doubted of the future of West Australia from the day when the news of Mr. Forrest's success reached Perth. Since then more interest has been taken in exploration. A second expedition was sent out to the eastward under Mr. Alexander Forrest in 1871, with the support of the Legislature and some of the settlers, and at present under the same auspices Mr. John Forrest is again exploring to the northward and eastward. His route will be guided by circumstances, but it is not improbable that he may aim for the Central Australian telegraph line, and I am already anxiously expecting tidings of him. 13. In 1870, with a vote I obtained from the Council, I engaged Mr. Henry Y. Brown as Government Geologist. His geological sketch map and his researches, which he pushed in one instance far into the interior, have been of the greatest value; and it was with much regret that in 1872, owing to the disinclination evinced in the Legislature in the then straitened circumstances of the colony to expend money on a scientific department, that I was obliged to forego my desire of making it a permanent part of the establishment. 14. As Colonel Warburton's journey from the Central South Australian telegraph line to our north-west coast was set on foot and its expenses defrayed by private colonists of South Australia, I only allude to it to acknowledge the obligation that this colony lies under to those public-spirited gentlemen and to the gallant leader and his followers. Parties headed by Mr. Gosse, by Mr. Giles, and by Mr. Ross have all within the last two years penetrated from the eastern colonies to within the boundary of our unexplored territory, but, beyond a certain extension of geographical knowledge, without effecting any material results.