prosecuted with varying interest. In the southern parts some 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. To settle this question was the true mission of Matthew Flinders, and the method he adopted was to circumnavigate the whole territory, keeping so near the land as to have his eye on the raging surf, except when the darkness of the night and the wildness of the weather rendered this purpose impracticable. On the very day of his death the printing-press issued a record of his labours in a couple of goodly quartos entitled "A Voyage to Terra Australis." This name was proposed for the new country as a fair and likely means of overcoming an acknowledged difficulty. The Dutch had long ago discovered the western coast and called the country New Holland, whereas the English, having performed a similar service for the eastern side, gave the name of New South Wales to this and the parts adjacent. Herein lay the difficulty; to call the whole continent New Holland seemed unfair to the English, whilst it appeared equally unjust to the Dutch to give the entire country the name of New South Wales. Flinders thought Terra Australis would be a reasonable compromise, but added, in an all-important footnote--"Had I permitted myself any innovation upon the original term, it would have been to convert it into AUSTRALIA, as being more agreeable to the ear and an assimilation to the other great portions of the earth." The suggestion was a most fortunate one, in