xlvi INTRODUCTION. [Prior Discoveries. 
Conclusive acquired of the North Coast, it will appear, that natural history, 
geography, and navigation had still much to learn of this part of the 
world ; and more particularly, that they required the accomplish- 
ment of the following objects : 
ist. A general survey of Torres' Strait. The navigation from 
the Pacific, or Great Ocean to all parts of India, and to the Cape of 
Good Hope, would be greatly facilitated, if a passage through the 
Strait, moderately free from danger, could be discovered ; since five 
or six weeks of the usual route, by the north of New Guinea or the 
more eastern islands, would thereby be saved. Notwithstanding 
the great obstacles which navigators had encountered in some parts 
of the Strait, there was still room to hope, that an examination of 
the whole, made with care and perseverance, would bring such a 
passage to light. A survey of it was, therefore, an object much to 
be desired ; not only for the merchants and seamen trading to these 
parts, but also from the benefits which would certainly accrue there- 
from to general navigation and geography. 
•2nd. An examination of the shores of the Gulph of Carpentaria. 
The real form of this gulph remained in as great doubt with geo- 
graphers, as were the manner how, and time when it acquired its 
name.* The east side of the Gulph had been explored to the latitude 
of 17 0 , and many rivers were there marked and named; but how 
far the representation given of it by the Dutch was faithful, — what 
were the productions, and what its inhabitants, — were, in a great 
* I am aware that the president de Brosses says, " This same year also (IG2S) Car- 
pentaria was thus named by P. Carpenter, who discovered it when general in the ser- 
vice of the Dutch Company. He returned from India to Europe, in the month of June 
1628, with five ships richly laden." (Hist, des Nav. aux Terres Aust. Tome I. 433). But 
the president here seems to give either his own, or the Abbe Prevost's conjectures, for 
matters of fact. We have seen, that the coast called Carpentaria was discovered long 
before 1628 ; and it is, besides, little probable, that Carpenter should have been making 
discpveries with five ships, richly laden and homeward bound. This name of Carpentaria 
does not once appear in Tasman's Instructions, dated in 1644 ; but is found in Thevenot's 
chart of 1663. 
