on the westward voyage, when the discovery was made, because, as Bass
twice mentions in his diary, "we could not land." Doubly inaccurate is
the statement of another writer that "the promontory was seen and named
by Grant in 1800 after Admiral Wilson."* (* Blair, Cyclopaedia of
Australia, 748.) Grant himself, on his chart of Bass Strait, marked down
the promontory as "accurately surveyed by Matthew Flinders, which he
calls Wilson's Promontory," and on page 78 of his Narrative wrote that it
was named by Bass. The truth is, as related above, that it was named by
Hunter on the recommendation of Bass and Flinders; and the two
superfluous Wilsons have no proper place in the story. The Thomas Wilson
whose name was thus given to one of the principal features of the
Australian coast--a form of memorial far more enduring than "storied urn
or animated bust"--is believed to have been a London merchant, engaged
partly in the Australian trade. Nothing more definite is known about him.
He was as one who "grew immortal in his own despight." Of the Promontory
itself Bass wrote--and the words are exceedingly apt--that it was "well
worthy of being the boundary point of a large strait, and a corner stone
of this great island New Holland."

Bass found the neighbourhood of the Promontory to be the home of vast
numbers of petrels, gulls and other birds, as is still the case, and he
remarked upon the seals observed upon neighbouring rocks, with "a
remarkably long tapering neck and sharp pointed head." They were the
ordinary Bass Strait seal, once exceedingly plentiful, and still to be
found on some of the islands, but unfortunately much fewer in numbers
now. The pupping time was passed when Bass sailed through, and many of
the females had gone to sea, as is their habit. This cause of depletion
accounts for his remark on his return voyage that the number was "by no
means equal to what we had been led to expect." But, he added, "from the
quantity I saw I have every reason to believe that a speculation on a