THE north-west of the “island-continent” of Australia seems to have been discovered almost simultaneously by the Dutch and Spaniards about 1606. Twenty years later, its west coast was sighted; and in 1622 the long line of shore to the south-west. Tasmania, or, as it was first called, Van Diemen’s Land, was visited by the Dutch navigator Tasman in 1642. Half a century passed, and Swan River was discovered by Vlaming. The real work of exploration did not begin, however, until 1770, when Captain Cook patiently surveyed the east coast, to which he gave the name of New South Wales. In 1798, in a small boat about eight feet long, Mr. Bass, a surgeon in the navy, discovered the strait that separates Tasmania from Australia, and now perpetuates his memory. He and Lieutenant Flinders afterwards circumnavigated Tasmania; and Flinders, in 1802 and 1803, closely examined the south coast, substituting, as a general designation of this “fifth quarter of the world,” Australia for the old boastful Dutch name of New Holland. He also explored the great basin of Port Philip, and discovered the noble inlets of St. Vincent and Spencer Gulfs. In 1788 the British Government selected Botany Bay, on the east coast, as a place of transportation for criminals; and from this inauspicious beginning sprang the great system of colonization, which, developed by large and continual emigration from the mother country, has covered Australia with flourishing States. Tasmania became a separate colony in 1825; West Australia, originally called Swan River, in 1829; South Australia in 1834; Victoria in 1851; Queensland in 1859. Meanwhile, the exploration of the interior was undertaken by a succession of bold and adventurous spirits, starting at first from New South Wales. The barrier of the Blue Mountains was broken through, and rivers Macquarie, Darling, and Lachlan were in time discovered. In 1823 Mr. Oxley surveyed the Moreton Bay district, now Queensland, and traced the course of the Brisbane. In 1830 Captain Sturt explored the Murray, the principal Australian river, to its confluence with Lake Victoria. In 1840 Mr. Eyre, starting from Adelaide, succeeded, after enduring severe privations, in making his way overland to King George’s Sound. In the following year he plunged into the interior, which he believed to be occupied by a great central sea; he found only the swamp and saline bays of Lake Torrens. Captain Sturt, in 1845, penetrated almost to the southern tropic in longitude 130° E., traversing a barren region as waterless and as inhospitable as the Sahara. About the same time Dr. Ludwig Leichhardt, with some companions, successfully passed from Moreton Bay to Port Errington; but, in 1848, attempting to cross from east to west, from New South Wales to the Swan River, he and his party perished, either from want of provisions or in a skirmish with the natives. In the same year Mr. Kennedy, who had undertaken to survey the north-east