Page:A Voyage to Terra Australis Volume 2.djvu/549

Coasts examined.] Bowen, Strong-tide Passage, Shoal-water Bay, and Broad Sound, the survey of which was completed; we landed also on two of the Northumberland and on one of the Cumberland Isles.

On the North Coast we landed on Good's Island, one of the Prince of Wales' Isles of captain Cook; for a few hours at Coen River on the east side of the Gulph of Capentaria; and in more favourable circumstances on many of the islands and some points of the mainland on the west side of this Gulph Several of the group called the Company's Islands in the chart, the shores of Melville Bay, of Caledon Bay, and a, small part of Arnhem Bay were also examined.

We then left the coast, owing to the decayed state of the ship, which, on our return to Port Jackson, was surveyed and pronounced unfit for the prosecution of the voyage.

Captain Flinders having, in consequence of this, determined to repair immediately to England, for the purpose of obtaining another vessel to complete the objects of the expedition; Mr. Bauer and myself agreed to remain in the colony of New South Wales, until his return, or, if that should not take place, for a period not exceeding eighteen months. During this time we added very considerably to our collections of plants, within the limits of the Colony of Port Jackson and its dependent settlements; the banks of the principal rivers and some part of the mountains bounding the colony were examined; I visited also the north and south extremities of Van Diemen's Land, remaining several months in the vicinity of the river Derwent; and repeatedly landed on Kent's Islands, in Bass' Strait, on the shores of which the principal part of the Submarine Algæ contained in our collections were found.

The reader of captain Flinders's narrative is already acquainted with the unfortunate circumstances that prevented his revisiting Port Jackson within the expected period, soon after the expiration of which we embraced an opportunity of returning to England, where we arrived in October 1805, with the greater part of our collections, and without having absolutely lost any one species; though many of our best specimens of the South Coast, and all the living plants collected in the voyage perished in the wreck of the Porpoise.

The collection of Australian plants thus formed amounts to nearly 3900 species. But before embarking in the voyage of captain Flinders, I