THE SUCCESSORS OF COOK 489 



Governor, Mr. Bass seemed " a young man of a well-informed 

 mind, and an active disposition " ; and he " accordingly 

 furnished him with an excellent whale-boat, well-fitted, 

 victualled, and manned to his wish, for the purpose of 

 examining the coast to the Southward, and as far as he 

 could with safety and convenience go." 



The excellent whale-boat was twenty.-eight feet seven is Van 

 inches long, and was fitted to row eight oars. She was LanTan 3 

 manned by a crew of six British seamen, and she carried island ? 

 provisions for six weeks. Bass's proposal was to re-survey 

 in detail the coast from Port Jackson to Point Hicks, 

 which Cook had surveyed in outline twenty-eight years 

 before. But the main interest of the voyage would begin 

 at Point Hicks, for at that point the charted coastline 

 broke. There was nothing on the map Southward of it 

 till you came to Furneaux's Islands and Van Diemen's 

 Land. And there was nothing Westward of it till you 

 came to De Nuytsland. It remained to chart the inter- 

 vening regions, and the first business was to determine 

 whether the water to the South of Point Hicks was a 

 Bay or a Strait, i.e. whether Van Diemen's Land was 

 an island or a part of New South Wales. It was a question 

 in which Governor Hunter, himself a capable surveyor, 

 felt a special interest. In 1789, sailing from Furneaux 

 Island to Point Hicks, he had argued from the appearance 

 of the sea, and from the set of the current, that " there 

 is reason to believe that there is in that space either a 

 very deep gulf or a strait whieh may separate Van Diemen's 

 Land from New Holland." No doubt he was very willing 

 that the young man of well-informed mind and active 

 disposition should have his chance to determine a question 

 that was not only interesting to geographers, but also 

 of great importance to navigators. 



Bass, with his six, sailed on this famous voyage on the From 

 3rd of December, 1797. * The three hundred miles of coast ^^ y to 

 between Port Jackson and Point Hicks had been surveyed Hicks, 

 by Cook ; but Bass thus Flinders sums things up 



1 Bass's Journal is printed in Historical Records of N.S.W., vol. iii. 

 p. 312 et seq. 



