13-t AUSTRALIA year Torres strait was named from a Portu- guese navigator who sailed through it. In 1616 Hartog, a Dutch captain, came upon the W. coast of Australia and called it Endracht's Land, from the name of his ship. From this time other parts of the W. coast were discovered. In 1622 the Leeuwin discovered the S. coast at Cape Leeuwin, and shortly after Van Nuyts sailed from that cape on the 8. coast to Spen- cer's gulf. De Witt's Land and Carpentaria, in North Australia, were also discovered by Dutch traders. Capt. Cook in 1770 discovered New South Wales and Botany Bay, which was so called by Sir Joseph Banks, the botanist of the expedition, from the wonderful floral display which its plains afforded. In 1788 the first English colony was established in New South Wales, at first as a penal settlement. The original design of the British government was to make this penal station at Botany Bay it- self; but a better locality was found at Sydney, and Capt. Phillip was sent out with a squadron having on board 850 convicts and a guard of 200 men and officers. In this convict colony, placed as it was under the absolute control of a governor with almost unlimited power, every kind of abuse and vice grew up ; and of these the free colonists who afterward began to settle in the district felt the effects in many ways. A conflict grew up between them and the government on the question of abolishing the transportation system ; and after endeavor- ing, under a long succession of governors, to devise some means of keeping up the two plans of a convict colony and a free colony to- gether, the government was obliged to yield, principally by the efforts of the " Anti-Trans- portation League " formed against its measures, and to issue an order in council in 1837 abol- ishing transportation to New South Wales, and restricting it to Van Diemen's Land ; even here it was abolished in 1853. From this time the attention of the English was more and more attracted toward Australia, and explora- tions of the other coasts and even of the in- terior followed in rapid succession. In 1798 and 1799 Flinders and Bass, two Englishmen, carefully surveyed the S. and E. coasts. In 1800-'! Grant and Murray explored the west- ern part of the S. coast, and their work was continued both to the eastward and northward during the next three years by Baudin, Frey- cinet, and Flinders. During the period from 1788 to 1791, explorations in the interior were also undertaken by Phillip, Tench, and Dawes. In 1796 Hunter penetrated to the mountains called by his name. In 1813 Wentworth, Blaxland, and Lawson crossed the Blue moun- tain and discovered the Bathurst plains, which in 1815 became the seat of a branch colony. In the same- year Evans explored the valley of the Lachlan. In the succeeding five years Jefferies, Kelly, and King completed the sur- vey of the coasts. Oxley, who travelled through the eastern mountain system in 1818, Hovell and Hume, who explored the region of the Australian Alps from 1818 to 1824, and Cunningham, who spent the six years from 1823 to 1829 in the northern part of the same district, were the next noteworthy explorers. In 1828 and the years following Sturt made several expeditions of importance, and in 1829 he discovered the Darling river. In 1829 also was founded the second of the chief colonies that which still bears the name of Western Australia. The first settlement was at Perth. In 1832 Bennett, and in 1835 and the suc- ceeding year Major Mitchel, explored southern Australia, and the latter followed the Darling to its confluence with the Murray, besides dis- covering the Grampian hills, and making other noteworthy additions to the knowledge of the interior. In 1835 also the first settlement in the future colony of Victoria was made at Port Phillip. In the mean time several attempts to colonize other parts of the coast had failed ; a settlement had been made in Arnhem's Land in 1824, and several others in subsequent years on the W. side of the island, but none of these endured more than a few years. In 1836, however, a successful colony was begun in South Australia, at Adelaide. In 1839 and the three following years Stokes made a series of important exploring expeditions along the coast. The interior, chiefly between the Pa- cific and the gulfs of Carpentaria and Spen- cer, was explored in the following three dec- ades by those of Eyre, Leichhardt, Sturt, the brothers Gregory and Helpman, Kennedy, Austin, Stuart, Babbage, the brothers Demp- ster, Burke and Wills, Landsborough, McKin- lay, Lefroy, Mclntyre, Forrest, Brown, and others, several of whom became the victims of their zeal and boldness. Emigration to the newly founded colonies was very slow ; large numbers of discouraged settlers left Australia for the South American coast or for other countries; and in 1850, after all the attempts made during 60 years of colonization, the Eu- ropean population was estimated at only 50,000. An event now occurred which suddenly changed the whole condition and prospects of the con- tinent. This was the discovery of gold in 1851, in the Bathurst district of New South Wales, by a gentleman returned from California, Mr. Hargraves. Count Strzelecki had previously announced the existence of gold in Australia, and Sir Eoderick Murchison, examining a piece of Australian quartz, had inferred it from his knowledge of the gold washings in the Ural mountains. The discovery of gold in quantities on the Turon river, in New South Wales, early in the year, first drew a number of diggers to that district. In the latter end of 1851, how- ever, diggings of far greater value were dis- covered in Victoria, and then commenced an influx of immigrants which, as in the case of California, produced results that set all fore- sight and calculation at defiance. In a year after the discovery the population was 250,- 000, notwithstanding the distance from Europe and the expense of the voyage. Ordinary busi-
