176 EXPLORATIOir BY SEA. 1773 '^ had long engaged tlie attention, not only of learned men, but of most of the maritime powers of Europe." In pursuit FrobtehOT ^^ *^^® objoct, he Sailed south among the icebergs with as much prospect of discovering another continent as Probisher had of finding the " golde mynes " he was sent to search for in the northern seas. Judging from this instance, speculative geography in the days of George the Third seems to have been no wiser than speculative gold-mining in the days of Queen Elizabeth. It seems to have been assumed by the geographers, after the publication of Cook's Second Voyage, that the question whether Van Diemen's Land formed part of New Holland Furnoftux'8 or uot had been satisfactorily settled by Captain Furneaux. accepted. The introduction to the account of that voyage, published in 1784, after quoting Cook's statement that he could not determine the question, proceeds to say : — But what was thus left undetermined by the operations of his first voyage, was, in the course of his second, soon cleared up ; Cap- Jumplngr at tain Furneaux, in the Adventure, having explored Van Diemen's concusions. j^j^j irom its southern point along the east coast, far beyond Tasman's station, and on to the latitude 38°, where Captain Cook's examination of it in 1770 had commenced. This statement, however, is not supported by Pumeaux's account of his voyage. He tells us that he discontinued his northerly course at latitude 39° and steered for New Zealand, by doing which he just missed the discovery of the straits. In the latitude 40° 50', the land trends away to the westward, " A deep which I beliove forms a deep bay, as we saw from the deck several ^^" smokes arising aback of the islands that lay before it, when we could not see the least signs of land from the mast-head. Thus, while Furneaux was making up his mind that there is no straits between Van Diemen's Land and New Holland, The straits but a very deep bay," the straits in question lay right before known. him. Had he been really intent on settling the matter, he could have done it in a few days. It was an easier thing, no doubt, to write " there is no straits between New Holland and Van Diemen's Land," than to sail along the coast and prove Digitized by Google
