small mistake in your narrative of this date concerning the late Mr. Robert Hoddle. You state that, "Messers. Darke, D'Arcy, and Russell, at one time were hard at work defining the outlines, fixing the boundaries, and marking the corners of the streets" of Melbourne. This is a thorough fiction. I never defined, fixed, or marked one outline, boundary, or corner of the incipient city. It is true I accompanied Mr. Hoddle on horseback when he started from Batman's-hill, and began his round to his starting-point, but I was merely a looker-on. That I was the first "surveyor in charge" at Port Phillip; that I was superseded, as I then thought and still think, unfairly; and that Mr. Hoddle drew his lines of street on the plan of my survey, drawn by Mr D'Arcy, under my instructions, prior to Mr. Hoddle's arrival, and which may still be seen at the surveyor-general's office, are facts much more to the purpose. – I am, &c. ROBERT RUSSELL East Melbourne, Oct. 29." In 1899 at the age of 91, he gave a lengthy interview to The Argus explaining the circumstances of his and Hoddle's work on the first plan of Melbourne in great detail. In closing he was quoted as saying: "Those are my reasons for saying that Mr. Hoddle practically adopted my survey of the site of the city. The credit of making the first survey was a mere matter of detail then, though years later the honour came to be one worth claiming. The original plan of Melbourne which I prepared, and which I looked upon as my own property, as I was merely filling in time, was sent to my father in England, who had it printed, and some of the copies were afterwards supplied to the Public Library. That briefly is the story as to how I came to make the first survey of the city of Melbourne." Another early colonist, Robert Frost, 'who arrived on the site of the city before a tree was felled or a sod turned' supported Russell as having first 'laid out' the city and said 'the honour has been wrongly borne by Mr Hoddle'. However, it is argued by some, especially descendants of Robert Hoddle that "It is to Hoddle that we owe the provision for squares, park lands and exits from the city, and he is entitled to be called the first surveyor