4 GENERAL REMARKS ON THE 



The materials for the present essay were acqmred prin- 

 cipally in the same voyage, from Captain Flindeis's account 

 of which a general notion of the opportunities afforded for 

 observation may be gathered. It seems necessary, however, 

 534] to present in one view the circumstances under which 

 our collections were formed, both in the Investigator's 

 voyage, and subsequently, during a stay of eighteen months 

 in New South Wales and Van Diemen's Island ; as also to 

 state other sources from which additional materials have 

 been obtained. By this means the reader will be better 

 enabled to judge how far I am entitled to make those ob- 

 servations of a more general nature which he will find in 

 the following pages. 



The first part of New Holland examined in Captain 

 Flinders's voyage was the South Coast, on various and 

 distant points of which, and on several of its adjacent 

 islands we landed, in circumstances more or less favorable 

 for our researches. The survey of this coast took place 

 from West to East, and our first anchorage w^as in King 

 George Third's Sound, in 35° S. lat. and 118° E. Ion. In 

 this port we remained for three weeks, in the most favor- 

 able season for our pursuits ; and our collection of plants, 

 made chiefly on its shores and a few miles into the interior 

 of the country, amounts to nearly 500 species, exclusive of 

 those belonging to the class Cryptogamia, which, though 

 certainly bearing a small proportion to phaenogamous plants, 

 were not, it must be admitted, equally attended to. At 

 our second anchorage, Lucky Bay of Captain Flinders's 

 chart, in 34° S. lat. and about 4° to the eastward of King 

 George's Sound, we remained only three days, but even in 

 that short time added upwards of 100 species to our for- 

 mer collection. 



Goose-Island Bay, in the same latitude and hardly one 

 degree to the eastward of the second anchorage, where our 

 stay was also very short, afforded us but few new plants ; 

 and the remaining parts of the South Coast, on five distant 

 points of which we landed, as well as on seven of its adja- 

 cent Islands, were still more barren, altogether producing 

 only 200 additional species. The smallness of this num- 



