Stirling and Caroline, returning by a more Southern route past the mount which bears his name. Meanwhile, Lieut. William Preston, R.N., with Dr. Alexander Collie, had reached Leschenault, to the South; and Lieut. Archibald Erskine examined the Darling Kange. Dale again, in the end of the year 1830, went to trace the course of the Helena River, and Captain Thomas Bannister started from the Swan River to cross the country to King George's Sound. On the South, Captain John Molloy had discovered the Blackwood, and Governor Stirling with the Surveyor General, Lieut. J. S. Roe, R.N., having visited Leschenault and Augusta, military detachments and settlers were established at both places. Nor had those at King George's Sound been idle, and the names of Lieut.-Col. Lockyer, Captain Wakefield, Lieutenants Tollemache and Kent, and especially that of Dr. Wilson. Resident Magistrate at Albany, will not be forgotton.
In the work of exploration none were more active than the Governor himself, who, with the Surveyor General, examined the course of the Collie and Preston Rivers, and the latter explored the country beyond the range of hills, which the Governor named after him. Roe's range; but the first exploration of any length, or presenting any serious, difficulty, was that made from the Swan to King George's Sound, by Captain Thomas Bannister, who, in consequence of the inaccuracy of the calculations of the surveyor sent with him, only succeeded in reaching, after much hardship, the coast near the mouth of the Frankland, having discovered in his journey the Bannister and other affluents of the Murray, as well as those of the Blackwood and Frankland. He first noticed the gigantic growth of the trees near the South coast.
