r his of Lucinia. And yet, in
likelihood, it may be so; for without all question, it being extended
from the tropick of Capricorn to the circle Antarctick, and lying as it
doth in the temperate zone, cannot chuse but yeeld in time some
flourishing kingdoms to succeeding ages, as America did unto the
Spaniards."** Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy, Part 2 Section 2 Number 3.

(*Footnote. The distance between Melville Island and Hobart Town in Van
Diemen's Land, the former being the most northern, and the latter the
most southern, establishment under the government of New South Wales, is
more than 2700 miles, and comprises an extent of coast nearly equal to
that of the British possessions in India!)

(**Footnote. Since the land that Quiros discovered and called Terra del
Espiritu Santo was, at the time Burton wrote, considered to be the
Eastern Coast of New Holland, I am justified in the use I have made of
the above curious passage.)

Since the return of the Expedition, my time has been occupied in
arranging the narrative, and divesting it of such parts as were neither
calculated to amuse the general reader, nor to give information to the
navigator; but this has been so much impeded by the more important
employment of constructing the Charts of the Survey, as to defer until
the present season the publication of the events of a voyage that was
completed nearly three years ago.

In addition to the Hydrographical Notices in the Appendix, I have
ventured to insert descriptive catalogues of the few subjects of Natural
History that were collected during the voyage; these were supplied by
some friends, to whom I have in another part of the work endeavoured,
inadequately no doubt, to express my sense of the obligation: but since
that part has been printed, my friend Mr. Brown has submitted some
specimens of the rocks of the western side of the Gulf of Carpentaria,
that were collected by him on the Investigator's voyage, to the
inspection of Doctor Fitton, by which means that gentleman's valuable
communication in the Appendix has been most materially improved. I have,
therefore, taken the present opportunity of acknowledging the readiness
with which this additional information has been supplied, and of offering
Mr. Brown my best thanks.

It now only remains for me to add, that the views with which these
volumes are illustrated were engraved by Mr. Finden from my own sketches
on the spot: the charts, which are reductions of those