Difficulties of carriage long retarded any attempt to occupy the splendid territory farther West which Sir James Mitchell had explored in 1846 and Kennedy had farther penetrated a year later, crossing the Barcoo and discovering the Thomson River. Though the existence of these vast rolling plains was known, the presumption that no industry requiring a fair amount of labour could pay, handicapped with five to six hundred miles of land carriage, checked any attempt to occupy them. Nor was this unreasonable. The difficulties and uncertainties of such an undertaking might well prompt hesitation. Yet, in view of the rich returns from flocks elsewhere, it was impossible that these solitudes should for very long await easier conditions. A few adventurous spirits pushed out to these great undulating plains. Their example was quickly followed. In the early sixties a general migration westward began, and wherever water was met with the country was taken up. In 1869 an Act was passed granting 21-year leases to applicants who had taken up areas and stocked them to the extent of twenty-five sheep or five cattle to the square mile. It was found that on these Western pastures, rich with succulent grasses and saline shrubs all the year round, and in winter abounding in herbage of many descriptions, all stock grew and fattened amazingly. The climate, too, falsified all predictions, and instead of converting the wool to hair, which experts had prognosticated as the inevitable result of an ardent summer, grew an excellent fleece of fine lustrous combing wool. A frantic rush for country set in. Flocks and herds were hurried out by jealous owners anxious to forestall one another in the scramble for leases. In a few years the whole territory, except where absence of water forbade settlement, was parcelled out in sheep and cattle runs. It had not yet been recognised how country destitute of surface water could be utilised. On these neglected areas are now many prosperous sheep-runs, the pioneers little suspecting the inexhaustible supplies awaiting the magic touch of the boring-rod to provide the abundant streams they longed for.