TASMANIA. 235 



south-western extremity of the land of Van Diemen, 

 discovered in 1633 by the celebrated Dutch Navi- 

 gator, Abel Tasman, and so named by him after 

 the Governor of Batavia, under whose authority the 

 voyage thus crowned with success had been per- 

 formed. 



To this portion of Australasia I shall systematically 

 apply the name of Tasmania, in honour of that 

 adventurous seaman who first added it to the list of 

 European discoveries. The same principle appears to 

 have been recently acted upon by the Government 

 in creating the Bishopric of Tasmania, and I may 

 therefore plead high authority to sanction such in- 

 novation :* higher perhaps than will be required by 

 him who calls to mind that hitherto the navigator 

 who added this island, and the scarcely less impor- 

 tant ones of New Zealand to the empire of science, 

 has been left without a memorial, the most befitting 

 and the most lasting that universal gratitude can con- 

 secrate to individual desert. The insular character of 



* Mr. Greenough, late President of the Geological Society, in 

 his anniversary address to that body on the 24th of May, 1841, 

 remarks that, " It is much to be regretted that Government 

 has not recognised Tasmania as the name of that island, impro- 

 perly denominated Van Diemen's Laud. The occurrence of a 

 second Van Diemen's Land on the northern coast of Australia 

 occasions confusion ; and since Tasman, not Van Diemen, was 

 the first discoverer of the island, it would be but just that what- 

 ever honour the name confers should be given to the former 

 uSi\'igatOY." — Journal of the Boyal Geo<jraj)hical Society of 

 London, vol. xi. 1841, part 1. 



