On October 14th, 1824, the party left Lake George. On reaching the Murrumbidgee they found it flooded, and after waiting three days, and the river continuing the same, an attempt was made to cross, and by means of the body of a cart rigged up as a punt with a tarpaulin, they succeeded. On the south side of the river they found the country broken, and somewhat difficult to make good progress through, but it was all well grassed and adapted to grazing purposes. Here, as might have been anticipated, they soon had to leave their carts behind, and pack their cattle for the remainder of their journey. Following the Murrumbidgee, after a short distance they left it for a south-west course, which still led them through hills and valleys rich with good grass and running water. On November 8th, they were destined to enjoy a sight never before witnessed by white men in Australia. Ascending a range, in order to get a view of the country ahead of them, they suddenly came in front of snowcapped mountains. There, under the brilliant sun of an Australian summer's day, rose lofty peaks that might have found a fitting home in some far polar clime, covered as they were for nearly one-fourth of their height with glistening snow. Skirting this range, which was called the Australian Alps, the travellers, after eight days wandering through the spurs of the lofty mountains they had just seen, came on a fine flowing river, which Mr. Hume named after his father the "Hume," destined to be afterwards called the Murray when visited lower down. Failing to find a ford, a makeshift boat was constructed by the aid of the useful tarpaulin, and the passage of the Hume safely accomplished. Still passing through good available country watered by fine flowing streams, on the 24th they crossed the Ovens River, and on the 3rd of December they came to another river, which they called the Hovell (now the Goulburn), and on the 16th of the same month reached the sea shore, near where Geelong now stands. Two days afterwards they commenced their return, and on the 18th January arrived at Lake George. This exploration had a great and lasting bearing on the extension of Australian settlement. A few years after one of the highest authorities then in the colony had deemed the western interior, beyond a certain limit, unfitted for human habitation; and expressed his opinion that the monotonous flats over which he vainly looked for any rise, extended almost to the sea coast--snow-clad mountains, feeding innumerable streams, were discovered to the south of his track.