,06 AUSTRALASIA ILLUSTRATED. 







coasting Long Beach. On the 4th of January Bass made Western Port, the limit of his 

 voyage southward, thence sailing for Port Jackson a fortnight aftenvards and arriving in 

 Sydney Cove, after a long experience of foul weather, on the night of the 24th of 

 February. The results of this voyage supplemented the previous knowledge of the 

 coast by discoveries reaching from the Ram Head to Western Port, the new coast 

 being traced three hundred miles. In the language of Bass's admirer, Flinders: 

 " A voyage expressly undertaken for discovery in an open boat, and in which six 

 hundred miles of coast, mostly in a boisterous climate, was explored, has not perhaps 

 its equal in the annals of maritime history." 



While Bass was prosecuting his explorations in the whale-boat, Flinders, on board 

 the schooner Francis, was proceeding to the wreck of the Sydney Cove at Preservation 

 Island, having left Port Jackson on the 3rd of February. After passing and naming 

 Green Cape, Flinders followed Bass's route and sighted Wilson's Promontory. The Kent's 

 Group, the Babel Isles, and Cape Barren Island were among Flinders's discoveries 

 during this voyage, from which he returned in March. On landing at Sydney on the 

 "th of that month he found that Bass had arrived a fortnight before him. 



On the 7th of October, 1/98, Flinders and Bass again set sail from Port Jackson, and 

 following the Tasmanian coast discovered Port Dalrymple and surveyed the River 

 Tamar. Resuming their course westward, the explorers discovered and named a number 

 of capes and islands along the northern coast, and by doubling Cape Grim proved 

 conclusively the existence of a strait between the Australian Continent and the island 

 then known as Van Diemen's Land. Voyaging southward they completed their survey 

 of the Tasmanian Coast as far as the Derwent, returning to Port Jackson on the nth of 

 January. To the passage between the Continent and Tasmania Governor Hunter gave the 

 name of Bass's Straits, and no honour was more deserved than the one thus conferred on 

 this intrepid and persevering mariner. Bass set sail for Home shortly after his return 

 to Port Jackson, and died, it is said, in South America, though other accounts state 

 that he was last heard of in the Straits of Malacca. Flinders felt deeply the loss of 

 his courageous coadjutor and wrote : " Of the assistance of my able friend Bass I was 

 deprived, he having quitted the station to return to England." In July of the same 

 year -Flinders sailed on a voyage northward to survey the coast as far as Glass-house 

 and Hervey's Bays. This voyage resulted in the discovery of Moreton Bay, and 

 was conducted with the thoroughness characteristic of the man. 



FLINDERS IN THE " INVESTIGATOR." 



Flinders returned to England in the Reliance, in 1800, with the object of inducing 

 the Admiralty to place him in command of a suitable vessel in which he could prosecute 

 a thorough examination of the southern coast of the Australian Continent, which was no 

 longer the terra incognita of La Perouse or of Cook. Antoine cle Bougainville had passed 

 Cape York, and left the evidences of French discovery in the Louisiade Archipelago. 

 M 'Cluer, Bligh (of Bounty fame), Portlock, Bampton and Alt had explored among the 

 different island groups clustering round the north-eastern coast of Australia. Southern 

 Australia had been least visited, but even there De St. Alouarn was reported to have 

 anchored off Cape Leeuwin ; Vancouver had entered King George's Sound ; and Bruny 



