It was our intention to have passed through Bass Strait, but finding we were unable to weather King Island bore up on the 6th for Hobart. On the evening of the same day we were by a sudden change of the wind placed in one of those perilous situations in which both a good ship and sound gear are so much required; the wind, which had been northerly throughout the day, about 8 P.M. veered round to west, blowing a heavy gale with a high sea; and since we had now run about halfway along Van Diemen's Land, left us with an extensive and dangerous shore under our lee. Through the dismal gloom of the night, during which there was incessant rain with a succession of heavy squalls, the angry voice of nature seemed indeed to be raised in menace against us, and it was not until the close of the next day that a slight abatement of the weather relieved our anxiety for the safety of the ship. During the night the wind backed round to the North-West and the sky became once more partially clear. Early on the morning of the 8th we descried the south-western extremity of the land of Van Diemen, discovered in 1633 by the celebrated Dutch Navigator, Abel Tasman, and so named by him after the Governor of Batavia, under whose authority the voyage thus crowned with success had been performed. TASMANIA. To this portion of Australasia I shall systematically apply the name of Tasmania, in honour of that adventurous seaman who first added it to the list of European discoveries. The same principle appears to have been recently acted upon by the Government in creating the Bishopric of Tasmania, and I may therefore plead high authority to sanction such innovation:* higher perhaps than will be required by him who calls to mind that hitherto the navigator who added this island, and the scarcely less important ones of New Zealand to the empire of science, has been left without a memorial, the most befitting and the most lasting that universal gratitude can consecrate to individual desert. The insular character of Tasmania was not fully ascertained till the year 1798, when the intrepid Bass, then surgeon of H.M.S. Reliance, while on a whaleboat cruise from Sydney, discovered the strait which bears his name. (*Footnote. Mr. Greenough, late President of the Geological Society, in his anniversary address to that body on the 24th of May, 1841, remarks that, "It is much to be regretted that Government has not recognised Tasmania as the name of that island, improperly denominated Van Diemen's Land. The occurrence of a second Van Diemen's Land on the northern coast of Australia occasions confusion; and since Tasman, not Van Diemen, was the first discoverer of the island, it would be but just that whatever honour the name confers should be given to the former navigator." Journal of the Royal Geographical Society of London volume 11 1841 part 1.) SOUTH-WEST CAPE.