In 1842, a Mrs. Nott Simpson was in the service of Mr. W . Thomas, an Assistant Protector of Aborigines, at Dandenong. Early in the evening with two of her children, she started on a visit to a dairy acquaintance on a station of Mr. Leslie Foster, some two miles from the Dandenong Creek crossing-place, and after making a brief stay she left to return home. One of her youngsters she carried in her arms, and the other trudged by her side. Nothing like a regular road was then to be found, the only thoroughfares being rough cattle tracks, crossing each other in every direction. Mrs. Simpson struck into one of these, which, instead of conducting her homeward, stuck her hard and fast in the ranges. Not returning in time, her absence excited considerable alarm, and search parties were organized to scour the country in every direction. The black police and the few residents in the locality set to work, dragged the creek, and for a week searched everywhere, without effect, when the absentees were given up for lost. A Mr. Dobie occupied a station in the neighbourhood, and he with one of his shepherds while in quest of some stray sheep decided upon following a track into the ranges. After proceeding some distance they came upon a mia mia, or hut, made of boughs, and as the Aborigines mostly construct theirs of bark, the hut-keeper exclaimed, " This is no blackfellow's doing. Mrs. Simpson must have been here." They carefully examined the place, and discovered footprints as if of a person walking on one foot bare and the other in a boot. These marks they traced some way, and soon after, to their astonishment, beheld Mrs Simpson coming from a creek with a boot filled with water, which she was taking to a child placed in a hollow log, near which the other was sitting. Dobie hailed her, and looking round, she got alarmed and ran away, but the m e n followed and overtook her. The hut-keeper inquired if she was hungry, and her reply was, "I can walk to Melbourne. Is it far?" Both mother and children were after some persuasion taken to a station of the Rev. J. Clow, not far off, where every attention was paid to them, medical aid obtained, and they soon rallied and recovered. The most extraordinary feature in the event is that these human stray-aways were for nine days and nights bushed, and had only a lump of butter to subsist upon, Still they survived. Mrs. Simpson could never give any satisfactory account of how they contrived to live, except that they used to eat leaves and some roots and berries. Mrs. Simpson, her boy and girl, were soon convalescent; the youngsters in course of time grew up, married, and became the parents of other youngsters. The mother, I believe, is still living (1888) in Kyneton, well and hearty. This narrative, not previously, so far as I know in print, is so unaccountably strange that I should hesitate in publishing it but for the unquestionable source from which it was communicated to me. THE FIRST FOUNDRY.
Early in 1842 two enterprising Scotchmen made their appearance in Melbourne. They were named Robert Langlands and Thomas Fulton, who had formed a partnership before emigrating, and after a brief look round they resolved upon the establishment of an iron foundry. Flinders Street then was absolutely a swamp, and ground thereabouts was to be had cheap enough. A n allotment running from Flinders Street to Little Flinders Street was obtained, whereon some small, rough shops were hastily thrown together, and an actual start made. From the inception of the undertaking, difficulties, now almost incredible, though then hard, unpleasant facts interposed, and anything like even the most trifling progress could only be effected by pluck and determination of no ordinary character. The proprietary was certainly possessed of some of the tools of trade, but of a quantity and quality the reverse of encouraging. There was in the place only one piece of machinery, a small slide rest lathe, to be turned by foot, not a very assuring prospect for the class of work to be executed. The earliest milling firm was that of Messrs. Allison and Knight, who had premises erected off the southern line of Collins Street West, near King Street, for which was imported a steam engine. Langlands and Fulton were employed to erect this "work of art," and they also received orders for rack wool-presses required by the squatters who use this sort of article, until a screw-press was received from Van Diemen's Land to serve as a model for an improved appliance. But the great stumbling-block at the infant foundry was the want of suitable apparatus. A pair of large blacksmith's bellows was indispensable to enable William Crole (afterwards the proprietor of the
