Tentative list of the navigators who visited Van Diemen's Land prior to September 1803.

Abstract

List of navigators who visited Van Diemen's Land prior to September 1803. My object in reading this list of early navigators is mainly to call attention to the paucity of information within our reach regarding geographical discovery in Tasmania. I choose September 1803 as a limit, partly because it is the date of arrival of the first colonization party and is therefore a convenient historical landmark, partly because it approximates the period at which finality in the delineation of the Tasmanian coast-line was attained by the determination of the peninsular character of the Ile d' Abel-Tasman of Dentrecasteaux, and by the discovery of Geographe Strait—finality, at least, so far as explorers from without the colony were concerned.