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.