نمایش مبدأ برای برگه:The life of Matthew Flinders.djvu/29

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</noinclude>Chapter I. 
BIRTH AND ORIGINS 
Matthew Flinders was the third of the triad of great 
English sailors by whom the principal part of Australia 
was revealed. A poet of our own time, in a line of 
singular felicity, has described it as the " last sea-thing 
dredged by sailor Time from Space;"* and the piece- 
meal, partly mysterious, largely accidental drag- 
ging from the depths of the unknown of a land 
so immense and bountiful makes a romantic chapter 
in geographical history. All the great seafaring 
peoples contributed something towards the result. 
The Dutch especially evinced their enterprise in 
the pursuit of precise information about the southern 
Terra Incognita, and the nineteenth century was 
well within its second quarter before the name New 
Holland, which for over a hundred years had borne 
testimony to their adventurous pioneering, gave place 
in general and geographical literature to the more con- 
venient and euphonious designation suggested by 
Flinders himself, Australia.! 
But, important as was the work of the Dutch, and 
though the contributions made by French navigators 
(possibly also by Spanish) are of much consequence, it 
remains true that the broad outlines of the continent 
were laid down by Dampier, Cook and Flinders. These 
are the principal names in the story. A map of Aus- 
' Bernard O'Dowd, Downward (1903). 
t Not universally, however, even in official documents. In the 
Report of the Committee of the Privy Council, dated May 1, 1849. 
"New Holland" is used to designate the continent, but "Australia" 
is employed as including both the continent and Tasmania. See 
Grey's Colonial Policy I., 424 and 439. 
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