[XV] 



sighted the southwestern corner of Western Australia near Cape Leeu- 

 win and on 8 December landed at King George's Sound [1] which 

 Vancouver, with Menzies as naturalist, had discovered in 1791. From 

 the botanical standpoint this was a fortunate landfall. Whereas Dampier 

 the pioneer had first made the acquaintance of the Australian flora in 

 almost its poorest coastal state, Brown and Bauer found themselves 

 within one of the richest floristic areas of the whole world, its wealth 

 of strange endemic plants challenging by their diversity both Brown's 

 skill in classification and description and Bauer's in the portrayal of 

 structure. They stayed here 24 days and, although they did not go far 

 inland, gathered some 500 species. Three days at Lucky Bay [2] pro- 

 vided 100 additional species. The Investigator then sailed eastward, 

 passing along the high impregnable cliffs of the Great Australian Bight, 

 carefully charting the coast and making landings whenever possible, 

 went through the Bass Strait and reached Port Jackson [20], New South 

 Wales, on 8 May 1802. The south coast yielded in all about 700 species 

 of plants, although mice and damp destroyed much of Brown's paper. 

 After a stay of twelve weeks at Port Jackson the bwestigator sailed 

 northward along the east coast, turned Cape York, visited Prince of Wa- 

 les Island [26], and then in November and December 1802 charted the 

 Gulf of Carpentaria [21 — 31] with great thoroughness. On the east 

 coast they got about 500 species and the same on the north coast. 



The ship was now in so rotten a state as to be liable to founder in 

 a strong gale and so damp as to spoil the papers, specimens and draw- 

 ings. Flinders accordingly decided to discontinue his coastal survey 

 and to return to Port Jackson by way of Timor. Here Brown got 200 

 species. The return voyage was southward to Cape Leeuwin, then east- 

 ward and northward to Port Jackson, which was reached on 8 June 1803. 

 The Investigator was now condemned as unseaworthy. Flinders set out 

 on 10 August 1803 as a passenger in the Porpoise to take Brown's 

 specimens and seeds back to England and to get a new survey ship. 

 Unfortunately the Porpoise and an accompanying ship Cato struck 

 Wreck Reef on 17 August and, although most of their crews were saved, 

 Brown's material perished. Flinders, when making a second attempt 

 to reach England, was unjustly interned in December 1803 by the 

 French governor of Mauritius (Ile de France), and did not get home 

 until October 1810. Brown and Bauer luckily stayed behind on both 



*) Numbers in square brackets refer hereafter to numbered positions on the 

 sketch-map 2 (p. xiv). 



