The Project Gutenberg EBook of Narrative of a Survey of the Intertropical
and Western Coasts of Australia, by Phillip Parker King

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Title: Narrative of a Survey of the Intertropical and Western Coasts of Australia
Performed between the years 1818 and 1822

Author: Phillip Parker King

Release Date: February 21, 2004 [EBook #11203]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SURVEY OF AUSTRALIA ***

Produced by Sue Asscher

NARRATIVE OF A SURVEY

OF THE

INTERTROPICAL AND WESTERN

COASTS OF AUSTRALIA.

PERFORMED BETWEEN

THE YEARS 1818 AND 1822.

BY

CAPTAIN PHILLIP P. KING, R.N., F.R.S., F.L.S.,

AND MEMBER OF THE ROYAL ASIATIC SOCIETY OF LONDON.

WITH
AN APPENDIX,
CONTAINING
VARIOUS SUBJECTS RELATING TO HYDROGRAPHY AND NATURAL HISTORY.

IN TWO VOLUMES,
ILLUSTRATED BY PLATES, CHARTS, AND WOOD-CUTS.

VOLUME 1.

PREFACE.

THE rapidly-increasing importance to which the English Colonies in
Australia have now arrived, rendering every subject connected with that
extensive continent of the greatest interest, whether in respect to its
geography, or the extraordinary assemblage of its animal and vegetable
productions, has induced me to publish such parts of my Journal as may be
useful to accompany the Atlas of the Charts of the Coast recently
published by the Board of Admiralty.

One of the results of this voyage has been the occupation of Port
Cockburn, between Melville and Bathurst Islands on the North Coast, and
the formation of an establishment there which cannot fail to be
productive of the greatest benefit to our mercantile communications with
the Eastern Archipelago, as well as to increase the influence and power
of the mother country in the South Pacific and Indian Oceans; and in
contemplating this new extension of her possessions*, I cannot avoid
recalling to mind a curious and prophetic remark of Burton, who, in
alluding to the discoveries of the Spanish navigator Ferdinando de Quiros
(Anno 1612), says: "I would know whether that hungry Spaniard's discovery
of Terra Australis Incognita, or Magellanica, be as true as that of
Mercurius Britannicus, or his of Utopia, o