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AUSTRALIAN GEOGRAPHY BEFORE FLINDERS.
In order that the importance of the work done by Flinders may be adequately appreciated, it is necessary to understand the state of information concerning Australian geography before the time of his discoveries.

Not only did he complete the main outlines of the map of the continent, but he filled in many details in parts that had been traversed by his predecessors.

This is a convenient point whereat to interrupt the narrative of his life with a brief sketch of what those predecessors had done, and of the curiously haphazard mode in which a partial knowledge of this fifth division of the globe had been pieced together.
There never was, until Flinders applied himself to the task, any deliberately-planned, systematic, persistent exploration of any portion of the Australian coast.

The continent grew on the map of the world gradually, slowly, almost accidentally.