This account of three expeditions to survey the interior of New South Wales was important for opening up land to further European settlement in Australia and the surveying of the course of the Murray-Darling River, the longest river in Australia.
The account also describes encounters with Indigenous Australians that were beginning to feel the effects of European encroachment on their lands. Most notably, the book contains an account of the Mount Dispersion Massacre, 27 May 1836, in which the surveying expedition led by Sir Thomas Livingstone Mitchell, the author of this work, ambushed and fired at a group of Barkindji people that had been following them for several days. Seven Barkindji were killed and four wounded as they fled. Mitchell asserted that his response was in self-defence, and that the Barkindji had ambushed his men. Mount Dispersion has been a sacred site of the Barkindji and nearby Kureinji people for thousands of years.