VOYAGE FOR THE DISCOVERY OF SOUTHERN LANDS. 925

feventy acres, principally fituate in the moll; fertile parts of the colony. At the dif-ferent farms which make up this number of acres, he has fix horfes and mares, onehundred and twenty-eight horned cattle, of which fifty-three oxen and feventy-fivecows, and very numerous flocks of Iheep.

After thanking Mr. Cox and his lady for the civilities we had experienced, M. Bellefinand myfelf returned to our boat, and in a few hours time reached Sydney Town .

While! was purfuing the different obfervations I have related, my worthy friend,M. Lefueur, had been employed in making a rich ornithological colle&ion; he had'killed more than two hundred birds: add to this, our zoological ftore was encreafedby fixty-eight quadrupeds, the refult of his activity ; a vaft number of drawings andcolourings alfo had been completed.

As fo many of our two crews had perilhed, owing to the long privations and the hor-rible epidemy to which they had been fubjeft, as the remainder was no longer com-petent to navigate the two fhips, as alfo we had from experience been taught that thefefhips were themfelves of too great burthen for the geographical details we had yet tocomplete, either on the fouth-weft, or north-weft parts of New Holland, it was deter-mined the Naturalifte fhould be fent back to France , after taking out of her almoft allthe found men on board, and fubftituting in their ftead the convalefcents and valetu-dinarians of the Geographe. A bark of thirty tons was on the ftocks, and this waspurchafed as a confort for us, the command being given to M. L. Freycin£t, firftlieutenant of the Naturalifte, and the author of the chief geographical workseffected on board that corvette. Captain Hamelin himfelf was to return to Eurooe inhis corvette, and render account to government of the refults of the voyage.

M. Lefueur and myfelf found ourfelves, in confequence of this refolution, fully occu-pied in arranging the different objects we had to forward to France by the Naturalifte,and were from that inftant obliged to fufpend our refearches. What perfeverantlabour, in fact, muft it not have required to difpofe methodically more than fortythoufand animals, of all claffes, collected from fo many Ihores in the courfe of the twoyears paft. Thirty-three large cafes were filled with thefe collections, the moft nume-rous and valuable that any traveller before had tranfported to Europe , and part ofwhich only, difplayed in the large houfe occupied by M. Bellefin and myfelf, excitedthe admiration of all intelligent Englilhmen, but efpecially of the celebrated naturalift,M. Paterfon.

Of all known countries there is not perhaps another in which electrical phenomenaare fo frequent and terrible as in this fingular climate. In the run from the Monti-nette Iflafids to Port Jackfon, we had already obferved with much furprize the conti-nuity of phenomena of this defcription, in a feafon, and during the prevalence of wea-ther fo little adapted to their developement; but, during the latter part of our ftay atSydney , we witneffed ftonns fo violent and fo repeated, that our aftonifhment wasconfiderably heightened. Never had we heard before fuch tremendous claps of thun-der, or feen the atmofphere furrowed by lightning fo vivid and fo fucceflive. In oneof thefe tempefts the Englilh flu'p Perfeus, which was deftitute of a conductor, wasftruck by the lightning and nearly perilhed.

The 7th October prefented us a phenomenon of this kind of which I know of no-thing parallel in meteorological annals. The weather in the fore part of the day hadbeen remarkably fine ; a calm reigned as well in the atmofphere as on the fea ; but, inthe afternoon, the wind veered fuddenly to the north-weft, blowing ftrong and infqualls ; a vaft collection of large black clouds, borne by thefe winds from the fummitsof the Blue Mountains , were precipitated into the plain. The clouds were fo heavy