in the body of the work, and chiefly to notice the physical structure, the
soil, climate, and productions of the colony, in order to convey to the
reader general information on these points, before I lead him into the
remote interior.

NAME OF AUSTRALIA.

It may be worthy of remark that the name "Australia," has of late years
been affixed to that extensive tract of land which Great Britain possesses
in the Southern Seas, and which, having been a discovery of the early
Dutch navigators, was previously termed "New Holland." The change of name
was, I believe, introduced by the celebrated French geographer, Malte
Brun, who, in his division of the globe, gave the appellation of
Austral Asia and Polynesia to the new discovered lands in the southern
ocean; in which division he meant to include the numerous insular groups
scattered over the Pacific.

IMPRESSIONS OF ITS EARLY VISITORS.

Australia is properly speaking an island, but it is so much larger than
every other island on the face of the globe, that it is classed as a
continent in order to convey to the mind a just idea of its magnitude.
Stretching from the 115th to the 153rd degree of east longitude, and from
the 10th to the 37th of south latitude, it averages 2700 miles in length
by 1800 in breadth; and balanced, as it were, upon the tropic of that
hemisphere in which it is situated, it receives the fiery heat of the
equator at one extremity, while it enjoys the refreshing coolness of the
temperate zone at the other. On a first view we should be led to expect
that this extensive tract of land possessed more than ordinary advantages;
that its rivers would be in proportion to its size; and that it would