Bibliographical Notice. 
3-21 
pended ; and the difficulties of Bass’s Strait may now be consi¬ 
dered at an end, so far as charts can aid the sailor. The western 
coast still demands the labours of the explorer and surveyor, to 
whom its unsheltered and precipitous front, and the prevalence of 
westerly winds sweeping over a boundless ocean, offer no very 
attractive prospect. 
As Capt. Stokes has not confined himself wholly to the coasts 
of Tasmania, we may tie permitted to follow him into the interior, 
where he saw and describes in a concise and graphic manner a 
memorable scene of social ruin and distress such as can never, we 
trust, again recur. Without entering at large into the discussion 
of his supposition that it was owing to the mistaken penal arrange¬ 
ments of the defunct probation system, we may observe that even 
the imagined pressure of moral evil may form a most serious 
aggravation of the fits of alternate excitement and depression to 
which the economical relations of every newly-peopled colony 
appear to be subject. 
The earth, the air, and the sea, would all appear to combine in 
marking out the future destiny of Tasmania as the officina gen¬ 
tium of the southern world. Her soil demands the diligence, her 
climate secures the vigour, her surrounding seas invite the enter- 
prize of her own inhabitants, to an extent beyond any of the 
neighbouring countries. Inferior to most in her natural capacity 
for the varied products of these southern climes, she is second to 
none in the capability of preserving to the human race the enjoy¬ 
ment of its highest energy and development. Her airy hills anti 
plains are deficient in the profuse vegetation elsewhere met with; 
but to this very circumstance we owe the enjoyment of a Medi¬ 
terranean sun without a Mediterranean malaria. Nor need there 
be any apprehension that future inhabitants will lose those phy¬ 
sical qualities of strength and hardiness which have been intro¬ 
duced from the temperate regions of the European world. Should 
the lower districts of the island of Tasmania prove to possess a 
too stimulating climate, the upper districts of the lake country 
are yet in reserve, and are capable of supporting many thousands 
and tens of thousands of a highland population, when once the 
lower district has received its natural complement of occupiers. 
