Mr 1 Flinders’s Observations 
246 
acquisition of the first importance : in a more extended view, 
I may say, that the patriot and the philanthropist must join 
with the philosopher and the mariner in desiring its comple- 
tion. So long and widely-extended a course of observation, 
however, seems requisite to form even a basis for it, that a 
complete system is rather the object of anxious hope than of 
reasonable expectation. Much has been done towards it, but 
so much appears to remain, that any addition to the common 
stock, however small, or though devoid of philosophical 
accuracy, I have thought would be received by the learned 
with candour. With this prepossession, I venture to submit 
to them some observations upon the movement and state of 
the mercury upon the coasts of New Holland and New South 
Wales, the Terra Australis, or Australia, of the earlier charts. 
The principal circumstance that has led me to think these 
observations worth some attention, is the coincidence that 
took place between the rising and falling of the mercury, and 
the setting in of winds that blew from the sea and from off' 
the land, to which there seemed to be at least as much re- 
ference, as to the strength of the wind or state of the atmo- 
sphere ; a circumstance that I do not know to have been 
before noticed. The immediate relation of the most material 
of these facts, it is probable, will be more acceptable than any 
prefatory hypothesis of mine ; and to it, therefore, I proceed ; 
only premising, that a reference to the chart of Australia will 
be necessary to the proper understanding of some of the 
examples. 
My examination of the shores of this extensive country 
began at Cape Leuwen, and continued eastward along the 
south coast. In King George’s Sound, December 20, 1801, 
