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entire coast. He was accompanied by Dr. Robert Brown, the 

 most keen and observant of all the botanists of Australia, who 

 possessed the same extraordinary faculty of observation as was 

 afterwai'ds displayed by Gould, in connection with the birds of 

 Australia. His " Prodromus Flora? Nova? Hollandise" is regarded 

 by all botanists almost with reverence, and he has been well 

 called "The father of Australian botany." He was ably assisted 

 in his work by Ferdinand Bauer, a draftsman whose name has 

 been utilised to form the name " Bauera," and by Peter Good, a 

 gardener, from whom the genus " Goodia" takes it name. 



These gentlemen made collections, not only at King George's 

 Sound, but on the Blue Mountains, and at Bass' Straits and 

 Tasmania; and Sir Joseph Hooker, on their' account, speaks of 

 Flinders' voyage, as far as botany was concerned, as the most 

 important in its results ever undertaken, and the results incom- 

 parably greater, not merely than those of any previous voyage, 

 but than those of all similar voyages put together, and says that 

 the Prodromus, though only a fragment, had for half a century 

 maintained its reputation unimpugned of being the greatest 

 botanical work that had ever appeared. 



His extraordinary collection of specimens is admitted to be the 

 foundation in England of the knowledge of Australian vegeta- 

 tion, and to show conclusively his power of observation, sagacity, 

 zeal and industry, which, during his short visits, often exhausted 

 the flora of the parts he touched at. 



When Brown commenced his labours, the number of ascer- 

 tained Australian plants amounted to 1,300, of which 1,000 had 

 been collected for the most part by Sir Joseph Banks. To this 

 collection Brown added nearly 3,000 species. 



He was fortunate in not accompanying Flinders in his subse- 

 quent voyage in the " Porpoise," which, with the " Cato," was 

 wrecked on the Cato reef; and in the :< Cumberland," which after- 

 wards called at Mauritius, where her commander, to the eternal 

 disgrace of the French Government, was imprisoned for six and 

 a-half years, in order, it is believed, to enable Peron's account of 



