INTRODUCTION. 
the Eaft coaft of New Holland, joins'to Van Diemen's Land , 
or no But what was thus left undetermined by the ope¬ 
rations of his firft voyage, was, in the courfe of his fecond, 
foon cleared up; Captain Furneaux, in the Adventure, 
during his feparation from the Refolution (a fortunate fe- 
paration as it thus turned out) in 1773, having explored 
Van Diemen’s Land, from its Southern point, along the 
Eaft coaft, far beyond Tafman’s ftation, and on to the lati¬ 
tude 38°, where Captain Cook’s examination of it in 1770 
had commenced t. 
It is no longer, therefore, a doubt, that we have now a 
full knowledge of the whole circumference of this vaft 
body of land, this fifth part of the world (if I may fa 
fpeak), which our late voyages have difcovered to be of fa 
amazing a magnitude, that, to ufe Captain Cook’s words, 
it is of a larger extent than any other country in the known 
world , that does not bear the name of a continent 
4. Tafman having entered the Pacific Ocean, after leav¬ 
ing Van Diemen’s Land, had fallen in with a coaft to 
which he gave the name of New Zealand. The extent of 
this coaft, and its pofition in any direction but a part of its 
Weft fide, which he failed along in his courfe Northward, 
being left abfolutely unknown, it had been a favourite 
opinion amongft geographers, lince his time, that New 
Zealand was a part of a Southern continent, running North 
and South, from the 33 0 to the 64° of South latitude, and 
its Northern coaft ftretching crofs the South Pacific to an 
immenfe diftance, where its Eaftern boundary had been 
feen by Juan Fernandez, half a century before. Captain 
* Hawkefworth, Vol. iii. p. 483, 
t Cook’s Voyage, Vol. i. p. 114,. 
$ Hawkefworth, Vol. iii. p. 622, 
Cook’s^ 
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