As the Beagle passed through the west channel, the shear or first beacon on the west reefs was on with a round-topped hill some distance up the river. Although there is very apparent difficulty in navigating the Tamar, still the first glance shows it to be a stream of importance. Its valley, although not wide, may be traced for miles abruptly separating the ranges of hills. We can easily imagine, therefore, the joy experienced by Captain Flinders on first discovering it in 1798, and thus bestowing a solid and lasting benefit on the future Tasmanian colonists. This is not, however, the only portion of Australasia whose inhabitants are indebted for the riches they are reaping from the soil, to the enterprising spirit of Captain Flinders. George Town is a straggling village lying two miles within the entrance of the Tamar; in its neighbourhood were found greenstone, basalt, and trappean rocks. Launceston, the northern capital of Tasmania, lies thirty miles up the river, or rather at the confluence of the two streams called the North and South Esk, which form it. SIR JOHN FRANKLIN. We found that the Governor was attending not only to the present but the future welfare of the colonists, by examining into the most eligible spots for erecting lighthouses at the eastern entrance of Bass Strait, fronting the North-East extreme of Tasmania, the numerous dangers besetting which have been fatal to several vessels. These buildings will be lasting records of the benefits the colony derived from Sir John Franklin's government. As we subsequently visited the Tamar, it is needless to give here the little information we gathered during our brief stay. Our observations were made on the south point of Lagoon Bay, where we found a whaleboat belonging to a party of sealers just arrived with birds' feathers and skins for the Launceston market. They had left their wives and families, including their dogs, on the islands they inhabit. RETURN TO PORT PHILLIP. On the morning of the 22nd, we were again out of the Tamar, and making the best of our way to Port Phillip for a meridian distance. There was little tide noticed in the middle of the Strait; the greatest depth we found was 47 fathoms, 68 miles North-West from the Tamar, where the nature of the bottom was a grey muddy sand or marl. At noon on the 23rd, we entered Port Phillip, and ran up through the West Channel in three and three and a half fathoms. Point Lonsdale, the west entrance point, being kept open of Shortland bluff--a cliffy projection about two miles within it--leads into the entrance; and a clump of trees on the northern slope of Indented Head, was just over a solitary patch of low red cliffs, as we cleared the northern mouth of the channel. From thence to Hobson's Bay, where we anchored at 3 P.M., the course is North by West 22 miles across a splendid sheet of water, of which the depth is 11 and 13 fathoms.