13 APRIL 1861, Page 3

The questions discussed at the meeting of the Royal Geographical

Society on Monday, have considerable interest. The papers read related to Australia, and the inference to be drawn from them is that Queensland is a country adapted to the cultivation of cotton of the very finest quality ; but doubts were suggested respecting the proba- bility of getting labour to cultivate cotton fields. It was also stated that a few thousand pounds spent upon the navigation of the Murray would make the country on its banks as fertile as the valley of the Nile. Another subject warmly debated was whether the interior of the continent is a desert—the greater number of speakers being of opinion that it is not a desert.