EARLY AUSTRALIAN EXPLORATION. 



BASS AND FLINDERS. 



A MONO the most determined and intrepid successors of Captain Cook and the earlier 

 ** Australian navigators must be reckoned Captain Matthew Flinders and Surgeon 

 Bass, to whose skill, courage, and perseverance we owe the discovery of the straits which 

 separate the Australian con- 

 tinent from Tasmania, the 

 discovery of Kangaroo 

 Island, the hydrography of 

 Tasmania, the exploration 

 of the coasts of New South 

 Wales and South Australia ; 

 of those portions of Western 

 Australia known as Nuyts 

 Land and Leeuwin Land ; 

 and the determination of 

 numerous points in the Gulf 

 of Carpentaria, Torres Straits 

 and the coast of Arnhem 

 Land. This valuable and 

 varied work was performed 

 by them first in conjunction, 

 then by Bass alone, and 

 finally by Flinders, who 

 probably survived his com- 

 rade by some years. - * ,/ 



One of the first works 



undertaken by Captain CAPTAIN MATTHEW FLINDERS. 



Hunter after his arrival in 



New South \Vales in 1788, was a marine survey of Botany and Broken Bays and Port 

 Jackson, with the greater number of the rivers which empty into them. Captain Cook 

 had certainly examined Botany Bay, but he had seen the entrances only of the other 

 two harbours. Hunter's survey, the first that was made of these inlets, included the 

 intermediate portions of the coasts, and was published shortly after the charts had been 

 sent to England by Governor Phillip. In 1795 Captain Hunter made his second voyage 

 to New South Wales, bringing with him His Majesty's armed vessels Kc/iancc and 

 Supply ; on board the former ship was a midshipman, recently returned from a South Sea 

 voyage, who, moved by a passion for exploration and novel adventure, seized the opportunity 

 for the indulgence of his leading characteristic on virgin soil. This adventurous midshipman 

 was Matthew Flinders, and with him the history of Australian coastal exploration begins. 



