Page:Physical Description of New South Wales and Van Diemen's Land.djvu/39

worthy of record than those of the French expedition in 1792, which, while sailing under Admiral d'Entrecasteaux, in search of the unfortunate " La Perouse," favoured the scientific world with a published survey of the coast line from Cape Lecuwin to Long. 132° in New Holland, and of the south extremity of Van Diemen's Land, including the river Derwent and the channel which bears d'Entrecasteaux's name.
  “ The charts of the last survey, particularly those relating to the bays, ports, and arms of the sea of the south-east of Van Diemen's Land, and constructed in this expedition by M. Beautemps Beaupré and his assistants, appear to combine scientific accuracy and minuteness of detail with an uncommon degree of neatness in the execution. They contain some of the finest specimens of marine surveying perhaps ever made in a new country.”—(Flinders. ) The knowledge of the form and outline of this still mysterious continent, as derived from these occasional surveys, or from the rumours which naturally arose through the obstinate secrecy of the Portuguese, Spaniards, and Dutch, amounted pretty nearly to this:—that Terra Australis is composed of two large continents, of which the more easterly included Van Diemen's Land, and which were divided by a wide channel running from north to south, the Gulf of Carpentaria being considered the northern extremity of that channel, and the great Australian bight, the southerly one.
  Such was the sum of geographical information or rather misinformation respecting this section of the world prior to 1797, when in that year, Midshipman Flinders, and Mr. Bass, surgeon in his Majesty's navy, visitors to the then already flourishing colony of Port Jackson, undertook a series of expeditions which not only led to a discovery of the straits between New Holland and Van Diemen's Land, but of various harbours and rivers in the two countries.