On the 22nd of May, Captain Mark John Currie, R.N., accompanied by Brigade-Major Ovens, and having with them Joseph Wild, a notable bushman, started on an exploratory trip south of Lake George. On the 1st of June, they came to the Morumbidgee, as it was then called, and followed up the bank of it, looking for a crossing. The day before they had caught sight of a high range of mountains to the southward, partially snow-topped. In their progress along the river they came to fine open downs and plains, which, with the singularly bad taste, which still, unfortunately, holds sway, Currie immediately named after the then Governor, "Brisbane Downs;" although but a short time before they had learnt from the aborigines the native name of Monaroo. Fortunately, in this instance, Monaroo has been preserved, and Brisbane Downs forgotten. On the 6th June they crossed the river, and found the open country still stretching south, bounded to the west by the snowy mountains they had formerly seen, and to the east by a range that they took to be the coast range. Their provisions being limited, they turned back, and reached Throsby's farm of Bong-Bong on the 14th of the same month. Cunningham, meantime, during the months of April, May, and June, was busily engaged in the country north of Bathurst. He had two purposes in view--his pursuit as a botanist, and the discovery of a pass through the northern range on to Liverpool Plains, which Lieutenant Lawson had been unable to find. On reaching the range he searched vainly to the eastward for any valley that would enable him to pierce the barrier, and had to retrace his steps and seek more to the west. Here he came upon a pass, which he called Pandora's Pass, [See Appendix.] and which he found to be practicable as a stock route to the plains. He returned to Bathurst on the 27th of June. In October, Oxley started from Sydney on a very different kind of expedition to those lately undertaken by him. His mission now was to examine the inlets of Port Curtis, Moreton Bay, and Port Bowen, with a view to forming penal establishments there. On the 21st of October, therefore, 1823, he left in the colonial cutter MERMAID, accompanied by Messrs. Stirling and Uniacke. At Port Macquarie, Oxley had the pleasure of seeing the settlement that had so rapidly sprung up on his recommendation of the suitability of the port. Further on, they discovered and named the Tweed River. On the 6th November, the MERMAID anchored in Port Curtis. Here the party remained for some time, and found and christened the Boyne River. Oxley's report was unfavourable.