valuable discoveries were made, and errors of previous observers corrected. In consequence of unfavourable weather the run along the eastern coast was made for the most part out of sight of land, but on the 6th of January it was found they had completely rounded Van Diemen's Land, and so brought their work to an end. The time allotted for the expedition having also expired, the heroic navigators returned to Sydney, bringing the welcome intelligence that doubt was no longer possible concerning the insularity of Tasmania, and the practicability of the intervening channel as a highway of commerce. The merit of this latter discovery is almost equally due to both navigators, but with a generosity which reflects credit, and is as noble as it is rare, Flinders prevailed on Governor Hunter to call it Bass' Strait.
What had now been done for the island of Van Diemen's Land by Bass and Flinders conjointly was next to be achieved for the continent of Australia by Flinders single-handed. Before his time much had been done in enterprises of discovery on numerous and distant parts of the coast by various commanders and by different nations; but as these efforts had been conducted under no comprehensive plan, there was no continuous line of exploration, and accordingly the discoveries hitherto made were known only as disjecta membra, lying at wide intervals in the Southern Ocean; but whether they were the extremities of one and the same continent, or a cluster of sporadic islands, there was not yet sufficient evidence to show.
