it is
of a larger extent than any other country in the known world, that does
not bear the name of a continent.[26]

[Footnote 26: What the learned editor asserts here, as to the full
knowledge acquired by the voyages to which he alludes, must be
restricted, as Captain Flinders very properly remarks, to the general
extent of the vast region explored. It will not apply to the particular
formation of its coasts, for this plain reason, that the chart
accompanying the work, of which he was writing the introduction,
represents much of the south coast as totally unknown. It is necessary
to mention also, that what he says immediately before, in allusion to
the discoveries made by Captain Furaeaux, must submit to correction.
That officer committed some errors, owing, it would appear, to the
imperfection of preceding accounts; and he left undetermined the
interesting question as to the existence of a connection betwixt Van
Diemen's Land and New South Wales. The opinion which he gave as to this
point, on very insufficient _data_ certainly, viz. that there is "no
strait between them, but a very deep bay," has been most satisfactorily
disproved, by the discovery of the extensive passage which bears the
name of Flinders's friend, Mr Bass, the enterprising gentleman that
accomplished it.--E.]

4. Tasman having entered the Pacific Ocean, after leaving Van Diemen's
Land, had fallen in with a coast to which he gave the name of New
Zealand. The extent of this coast, and its position in any direction but
a part of its west side, which he sailed along in his course northward,
being left absolutely unknown, it had been a favourite opinion amongst
geographers, since his time, that New Zealand was a part of a southern
continent, running north and south, from the 33 deg. to the 64 deg. of south
latitude, and its northern, coast stretching cross the South Pacific to
an immense distance, where its eastern boundary had been seen by Juan
Fernandez, half a century before. Captain Cook's voyage in the Endeavour
has totally destroyed this supposition. Though Tasman must still have
the credit of having first seen New Zealand, to Captain Cook solely
belongs that of having really explored it. He spent near six months upon
its coasts in 1769 and 1770, circumnavigated it completely, and
ascertained its extent and division into two islands. Repeated visits
since that have perfected this important discovery, which, though now
known to be no part of a sout