whole of the South Coast – which included all the discoveries of Nuyts,
Vancouver, Grant, Flinders, & Baƒs – was laid down as new land, & called
Terre Napoleon. On the restoration of his Charts & Plans, one log-book
being kept or destroyed, Captain Flinders was ordered to write the narrative
of his voyage; & the close application which this demanded, completed what
misfortune & imprisonment had begun. While the work was in hand,
he maintained his energy, but drooped after revising his last sheet; & at
length, July 19^th 1814, he expired, on the very day his work was
published, – leaving a widow & one daughter, who have never received
any recompence [sic] whatever for the discoveries, sufferings, & hardships of
a martyr to his zeal for his country's service.
      In the course of these voyages, and when among rocks, shoals,
islets, & coral reefs, it was neceƒsary to exert the most unwearied diligence; and
in attending to the marine barometer which aided his judgement of the
weather, he detected the remarkable co-incidence that took place between
the rising & falling of the mercury, & the setting in of winds that blow from
the sea & from off the land. But the most important service which
Captain Flinders rendered to Physical Science, resulted from his persevering
investigation of magnetic phenomena. The anomaly of the ship's compaƒs
indicating differently when the ship's head is towards different directions, had
been noticed by Cook, but without a suggestion as to the cause; and so
little was it generally known, that the loƒs of many ships must be di=
=rectly imputed to it. The sagacity of Flinders found it to result from
the local attraction of ships: and the experiments which he conducted at
Sheerneƒs, Portsmouth, Plymouth, & in the Channel, on his return, under
Admiralty orders, decisively proved this new & unexpected branch of
Newton's law of Attraction.-