its being part of New Holland" decided to proceed westward. As will be
seen hereafter, Flinders helped to show that the passage existed.

There were also many smaller points requiring investigation. Cook in
running along the east coast had passed several portions in the night, or
at such a distance in the daytime as to render his representation of the
coastline doubtful. Some groups of islands also required to be accurately
charted. Indeed, it may be said that there was no portion of the world
where, at this period, there was so much and such valuable work to be
done by a competent and keen marine explorer, as in Australia.

A passage in a manuscript by Flinders may be quoted to supplement what
has been written above, as it indicates the kind of speculations that
were current in the conversation of students of geography.* (* Called an
Abridged Narrative--Flinders' Papers.)

"The interior of this new region, in extent nearly equal to all Europe,
strongly excited the curiosity of geographers and naturalists; and the
more so as, ten years after the establishment of a British Colony at Port
Jackson on the east coast, and the repeated effort of some enterprising
individuals, no part of it beyond 30 leagues from the coast had been seen
by an European. Various conjectures were entertained upon the probable
consistence of this extensive space. Was it a vast desert? Was it
occupied by an immense lake--a second Caspian Sea, or by a Mediterranean
to which existed a navigable entrance in some part of the coasts hitherto
unexplored? or was not this new continent rather divided into two or more
islands by straits communicating from the unknown parts of the south to
the imperfectly examined north-west coast or to the Gulf of Carpentaria,
or to both? Such were the questions that excited the interest and divided
the opinion of geographers."