In this edited selection of his journals, Matthew Flinders, Australia’s greatest navigator and the man who named our island continent, describes in captivating detail his epic mission to map our shores between 1796 and 1803.

A Biographical Tribute to the Memory of Trim by Matthew Flinders Trim was a ship's cat that accompanied Matthew Flinders on his voyages to circumnavigate and map the coastline of Australia in 1801-03. Trim's epitath and tribute were written during Flinders' incarceration on Mauritius; he changed the names of the various ships used on the voyages We are delighted to publish this classic book as part of our extensive Classic Library collection. Many of the books in our collection have been out of print for decades, and therefore have not been accessible to the general public. The aim of our publishing program is to facilitate rapid access to this vast reservoir of literature, and our view is that this is a significant literary work, which deserves to be brought back into print after many decades. The contents of the vast majority of titles in the Classic Library have been scanned from the original works. To ensure a high quality product, each title has been meticulously hand curated by our staff. Our philosophy has been guided by a desire to provide the reader with a book that is as close as possible to ownership of the original work. We hope that you will enjoy this wonderful classic work, and that for you it becomes an enriching experience.

Matthew Flinders was a country boy who wanted to be a sailor. He lived at a time when ocean voyages took months, sometimes years. His life at sea was full of adventure and danger. He was the first to sail all the way around Australia. He drew the first complete map of the continent. Sailing was a dangerous business in Matthew's time that could end in shipwreck, disease or death. He wanted to make it safer for sailors by making his map as accurate as possible.

"Observations on the Coasts of Van Diemen's Land" is a historical account of the exploration of the Australian continent created by Captain Matthew Flinders, a British navigator, and cartographer who led the first inshore circumnavigation of mainland Australia. The expeditions started from Port Jackson and aimed to explore the neighboring lands.