not quite ready for the trip into the bush and decided to spell them for a week. While we were waiting it occurred to me that we might as well fill in the time by making a survey of the site of the future settlement. I took the triangulation, Mr Darke worked along the river, and Mr D'Arcy, who was a first-class draughtsman, prepared a plan showing the natural features of the ground. I suppose we were about a week over it altogether." When asked how he determined the position of the future city he referred to the 'illegal' arrivals of John Batman and John Pascoe Fawkner the year before: "That was largely settled for me by the first settlers who built their huts on the present site of the future city, and whom I sought to disturb as little as possible in making the survey. The idea was to have as few of the huts as possible actually in the streets, from which in a very little time they would have to be removed. The old falls on the Yarra really determined the position of the city. The first hut builders kept close to them. The preference for the locality – the high ground between Queen, King, Flinders, and Bourke streets – lasted for some time after the building of Melbourne had begun, and all of the earlier buildings shown on old plans are dotted about there." In May 1837 Russell had to 'return to Sydney to complete surveying commitments' and was to be 'relieved by Mr. Surveyor Hoddle'. Before Hoddle left Sydney he asked Russell to send him his survey of Melbourne which drew on a 'general plan' held 'in the Sydney office generally approved as suitable for laying out a new township' which Russell had a copy of. Along with D'Arcy and Darke, Russell accompanied Hoddle as he made his own survey, before Russell returned to Sydney. As Robert Hoddle was the colony's surveyor when the first plan of Melbourne was officially published this led to the city design being dubbed the Hoddle Grid. At Hoddle's death in 1881 The Argus published an article which set out the reasons why it believed 'a gentleman so intimately associated with the foundation of Melbourne as to deserve the honour of a civic funeral'. Two days later a 'Letter To The Editor' appeared: "Sir, – Permit me to correct a