1815.] Flinders' Voyage to Terra Aust rails. 22t 



was established at Port Jackson, various expeditions were sent from 

 that place to ascertain the east coast of this country with precision ; 

 and in these expeditions. Captain Flinders, and jMr. Bass, surgeon 

 of the Reliance, cut a most conspicuous figure. These two enter- 

 prizing gentlemen sailed from Port Jackson in 1795, in a small 

 boat only eight feet long, called the Tom Thumb, with a crew 

 consisting only of themselves and a boy. They explored about 35 

 miles of coast, and ascertained the figure and value of several bays 

 and openings. In 1797> Mr. Bass set out in a whale boat, with a 

 crew of eight picked men, to explore the east coast. He sailed 

 south, was absent above eleven week?, and examined above GOCl 

 miles of coast ; entering Bass's Straits, and making considerable 

 progress in them, and satisfying himself that V^an Dieman's Land 

 was an island; though the evidence which he obtained was not 

 isufficiently strong to satisfy others. In 179^} Captain Flinders and 

 Mr. Bass were sent on purpose from Port Jackson, to determine 

 the point. They sailed through Bass's tStraits and round Van 

 Dieman's Land, and thus put it beyond doubt that Van Dieman's 

 Land is an island. Such was the state of our knowledge of the 

 coast of New Holland when Captain Flinders's voyage was under- 

 taken in 1801. 



Captain Flinders sailed from Spithead on the 18th of July, 1801, 

 in the ship Investigator, of 334 tons burthen, with a compliment 

 of 88 men. The vessel had been a collier, and though old, was 

 the best which the Admiralty could at that time spare for this ser- 

 vice. After touching at Madeira, and stopping some time at the 

 Cape of Good Hope, he made the coast of New Holland on the 

 7th of December. The part of the coast which he first saw was 

 Cape Leeuwin, the south western and most projecting part of 

 Leeuwin's Land. The highest hill lies nearly in latitude 34° 19', 

 south, and longitude 115° 6', east. From this port he coasted 

 along the shore till he came to King George the Third's Sound, 

 where he put the ship in order, and took in wood and water. 

 Bald Head, the entrance to this sound, lies in latitude 35° 6' 15'"', 

 south ; and in longitude 1 18° O' 45", ease. It was from this point 

 that he was instructed to make a minute survey of the south coast 

 of New Holland as far as Bass's Strait. 



From King George the Third's Sound to about east longitude 

 J31, a space of 15 degrees of longitude, the coast runs easterly 

 with a slight inclination to the north ; and the whole of this space 

 consists of a cliir between 5 and 6'00 feet high, the lower part of 

 which is white and the upper part brown. Not a single river runs 

 into the sea in all this vast tract, nor was there a single landing 

 place to be seen. Captain Flinders conceives that this long clitF 

 may be a coral reef, elevated by some unknown means so mucli 

 al)Ove the level of the sea; and thinks it not unlikely that an 

 island, sea, or lake, may be on the oilier side of the cliff. It is 

 much to be regretted that this conjecture was not verified by an 

 attempt to climb the clitfj and see what was on the other side of 



