A VOYAGE TO 
globe, of the various tribes by which it is peopled, and 
of the animals and vegetables to which it gives fupport. 
An expedition occafioned by motives of legiflative 
policy, carried on by public authority, and concluded by 
a fixed eftablifliment in a country very remote, not only 
excites an unufual interefl: concerning the fate of thcfe 
fent out, but promifes to lead us to fom.e points of 
knowledge which, by the former mode, however judici- 
oufly employed, could not have been attained. A tran- 
fient vifit to the coaft of a great continent cannot, in the 
nature of things, produce a complete information re- 
fpedting its inhabitants, productions, foil, or climate : all 
which when contemplated by refident obfervers, in every 
poffible circumftance of variation, though they fhould 
be viewed with lefs philofophical acutenefs, mull: yet 
gradually become more fuliy known : Errors, fometimes 
infeparable from hafty obfervation, will then be corrected 
by infallible experience ; and many objedts will pxefent 
themfelves to view, which before had efcaped notice, or 
had happened to be fo lltuated that they could not be 
t)bferved. 
, ' The full difcovery of the extent of New Holland, by 
our illuftrious navigator, Capt.Cook, has formed a fingular 
epocha in geography ; a doubt having arifen from it, whe- 
ther to a land of fuch magnitude the name of illand or that 
of continent may more properly be applied. To this quef- 
; ■ 6 tion 
