INTRODUCTION TO AUSTRALIA. THE following Poem has for its subject those vast tracts of country lately discovered in the Pacific, Indian, and Southern Oceans;—so far as they are included between the boundaries marked out by the President De Brosses, and adopted by Pinkerton, for that division of the whole called Australasia. These boundaries are contained by an imaginary line, drawn in the latitude of 3° or 4° to the north of the equator ;-then passing south, in the meridian of 170° east from Greenwich, so as to include the New Hebrides;-thence, in the parallel of 30° south, gradually stretching to 175° west from Greenwich, in 174 INTRODUCTION. cluding New Zealand and Chathain Island; and which may be extended, on the south, as far as 60o, where the fields of ice begin to appear, or even further. As yet, however, no islands of any consequence have been discovered in a latitude lower than 50° south; and, consequently, on that side, the strict demarcation must be left open to the labors of future navigators. As at present laid down, they comprise the central and chief land of Notasia, or New Holland,-Papua, or New Guinea,― New Britain and New Ireland, with the Solomon Isles,—New Caledonia and the New Hebrides,—New Zealand,—Van Dieman's Land,-Kerguelen's Islands, or Islands of Desolation,and the Islands of St. Paul and Amsterdam,-together with numerous reefs and islets of coral, scattered over the Australian seas. It is considered probable that the extreme northern parts of Papua, or New Guinea, were not wholly unknown to the Chinese: but, it is pretty certain that their discoveries extended no lower, as none of the countries lying to the south of that position appear to be, in any way, indicated by the celebrated Marco Paolo. However this may be, the western world owes its acquaintance with them to that species of philosophy which guided Columbus to the discovery of America. A belief had long prevailed, in speculative geography, that the balance of land and water pointed out the existence of a great southern continent, or Terra Australis,-supposed to lie in the Southern or Antartic Ocean, towards the pole. This theory, for two centuries, excited the rapacity of the different Euro |