24
LAUNCESTON.
[Chap. I.
1841
of the expedition, and of which I did not receive any account until our return from the antarctic seas, which is the reason of my not having established a similar mark on the rocks of Kerguelen Island, or some part of the shores of Victoria Land. Upon this subject that great philosopher observes, that "if similar measures had been taken in Cook and Bougainville's earliest voyages, we should now be in possession of the necessary data for determining whether secular variation in the relative level of land and sea is a general or merely a local phenomenon, and whether any law is discoverable in the direction of the points which rise or sink simultaneously."
By the kindness of Sir John Franklin, I was also enabled to extend my magnetic observations for determining the lines of equal variation, dip, and intensity across the island to Launceston, and thence down an arm of the sea called the Tamar to George Town, where I received a kind welcome, and every assistance, from Lieutenant Friend of the royal navy, the port officer. Launceston, the northern capital of the island, as it has been sometimes called, is very inferior as a town to Hobarton, but the country about it is far more beautiful and valuable. Many of the wealthiest of the colonists have settled in its neighbourhood, but they do not seem to possess any large amount of public spirit, so far as regards the improvement of their favourite city, arising chiefly, I believe, from the expectation that the colonial government would