During the eighteenth century exploration was continued by the English.
The good report of Captain Cook caused the first British settlement to be
made at Port Jackson, in 1788, not quite a hundred years ago, and the
foundations were then laid of the settlement of New South Wales, or
Sydney. It was at first a penal colony, and its Botany Bay was a name of
terror to offenders. Western Australia, or Swan River, was first settled
as a free colony in 1829, but afterwards used also as a penal settlement;
South Australia, which has Adelaide for its capital, was first
established in 1834, and colonised in 1836; Victoria, with Melbourne for
its capital, known until 1851 as the Port Philip District, and a
dependency of New South Wales, was first colonised in 1835. It received
in 1851 its present name. Queensland, formerly known as the Moreton Bay
District, was established as late as 1859. A settlement of North
Australia was tried in 1838, and has since been abandoned. On the other
side of Bass's Straits, the island of Van Diemen's Land, was named
Tasmania, and established as a penal colony in 1803.

Advance, Australia! The scattered handfuls of people have become a
nation, one with us in race, and character, and worthiness of aim. These
little volumes will, in course of time, include many aids to a knowledge
of the shaping of the nations. There will be later records of Australia
than these which tell of the old Dutch explorers, and of the first real
awakening of England to a knowledge of Australia by Dampier's voyage.

The great Australian continent is 2,500 miles long from east to west, and
1,960 miles in its greatest breadth. Its climates are therefore various.
The northern half lies chiefly within the tropics, and at Melbourne snow
is seldom seen except upon the hills. The separation of Australia by
wide seas from Europe, Asia, Africa, and America, gives it animals and