It Was An
Admirably Chosen Body For Formulating A Programme Of Scientific Research.
A Great Astronomer, Two Eminent Biologists, A
Famous botanist, a
practical navigator, a geographer, all men of distinction among European
savants, and two of them, Laplace and
Cuvier, among the greatest men of
science of modern times, were scholars who knew what might be expected to
be gained for knowledge, and where and how the most fruitful results
might be obtained.
In their instructions, the committee directed attention to the south
coast of Tasmania - by that time known to be an island, since the
discoveries of Bass and Flinders, and their circumnavigation, had been
the subject of much comment in Europe - as offering a good field for
geographical research. They indicated the advisableness of exploring the
eastern coast of the island, of traversing Bass Strait with a view to a
more complete examination than appeared to the Institute to have been
made up to that time, and of pursuing the southern coasts of Australia as
far as the western point of Dentrecasteaux's investigations, especially
with the object of searching that part of the land "where there is
supposed to be a strait communicating with the Gulf of Carpentaria, and
which, consequently, would divide New Holland into two large and almost
equal islands." So much accomplished, the expedition was to pay
particular attention to the coasts westward of the Swan River, since the
old navigators who had determined their contour had necessarily had to
work with imperfect instruments.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 159 of 299
Words from 44046 to 44295
of 83218
