ruptly separating
the ranges of hills. We can easily imagine, therefore, the joy
experienced by Captain Flinders on first discovering it in 1798, and thus
bestowing a solid and lasting benefit on the future Tasmanian colonists.
This is not, however, the only portion of Australasia whose inhabitants
are indebted for the riches they are reaping from the soil, to the
enterprising spirit of Captain Flinders.

George Town is a straggling village lying two miles within the entrance
of the Tamar; in its neighbourhood were found greenstone, basalt, and
trappean rocks. Launceston, the northern capital of Tasmania, lies thirty
miles up the river, or rather at the confluence of the two streams called
the North and South Esk, which form it.

SIR JOHN FRANKLIN.

We found that the Governor was attending not only to the present but the
future welfare of the colonists, by examining into the most eligible
spots for erecting lighthouses at the eastern entrance of Bass Strait,
fronting the North-East extreme of Tasmania, the numerous dangers
besetting which have been fatal to several vessels. These buildings will
be lasting records of the benefits the colony derived from Sir John
Franklin's government.

As we subsequently visited the Tamar, it is needless to give here the
little information we gathered during our brief stay. Our observations
were made on the south point of Lagoon Bay, where we found a whaleboat
belonging to a party of sealers just arrived with birds' feathers and
skins for the Launceston market. They had left their wives and families,
including their dogs, on the islands they inhabit.

RETURN TO PORT PHILLIP.

On the morning of the 22nd, we were again out of the Tamar, and making
the best of our way to Port Phillip for a meridian distance. There was
little tide noticed in the middle of the Strait; the greatest depth we
found was 47 fathoms, 68 miles North-West from the Tamar, where the
nature of the bottom was a grey muddy sand or marl.

At noon on the 23rd, we entered Port Phillip, and ran up through the West
Channel in three and three and a half fathoms.

Point Lonsdale, the west entrance point, being kept open of Shortland
bluff--a cliffy projection about two miles within it--leads into the
entrance; and a clump of trees on the northern slope of Indented Head,
was just over a solitary patch of low red cliffs, as we cleared the
northern mouth of the channel. From thence to Hobson's Bay, where we
anchored at 3