at any time before, except in the Bay of Inlets. It may be owing to
the water being confin'd in Channels between the Shoals, but the flood
always set to the North-West to the extremity of New Wales, from thence
West and South-West into the India Seas.

[Historical Notes, East Coast of Australia.]

HISTORICAL NOTES ON THE EAST COAST OF AUSTRALIA.

PREVIOUS to Cook's visit no European, so far as is known, had ever
sighted the East Coast of Australia, or, as it was then called, New
Holland. The Dutch had examined and mapped the shores from the Gulf of
Carpentaria on the north round by the west to Van Dieman's Land or
Tasmania, but had not decided whether the latter was a part of the
mainland or no. Dampier, in 1699, had the intention of passing south to
explore the unknown eastern shore, but never carried it out, confining
his attention to the northern part of the west coast, with which, and
with good reason, he was not favourably impressed.

On all maps of the time, the east coast, from Tasmania to the north, was
shown as a dotted and more or less straight line, Tasmania being joined
at the south, and generally New Guinea at the north.

There is indeed one manuscript known as the Dauphin's Map, a copy of
which is in the British Museum, of the date of about 1540, which shows a
certain amount of the north-east coast, and has been thought by some to
prove that some one had visited it. But an inspection of it shows that it
is far more probably a case of imaginative coast drawing, such as occurs
in other places in the same map, and in many others of the same and later
dates, and there is certainly no record of any voyage to this coast.

After Cook's exploration it remained unvisited until 1788, when, owing
mainly to Banks' influence, Botany Bay was pitched upon as a convict
settlement, and a squadron, consisting of H.M.S. Sirius, the Supply brig,
3 storeships, and 6 transports, under the command of Captain Arthur
Phillip, R.N., which had sailed from England on May 13th, 1787, arrived
in that bay on January 18th, 1788, but immediately moved into Port
Jackson, where the settlement of Sydney was formed.

The early history of the Colony was one of struggle and starvation, and
it was many years before any prosperity was attained. In 1839 the
deportation of convicts ceased, but it was not until 1851, when gold was
found, that free settlers in any large number came to the Colony.

Queensland, formerly the northern part of New