The Travels and Adventures of Celebrated Travelers in the Principal Countries of the Globe

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1854 Excerpt: ... LIFE IN THE BUSH. Discoveby of Australia--The Great Desert--Climato--Soil and productions--The Aborigines--The Transportation system--Convicts first transported to America--Story of Moll Flanders, of the early settlers of Virginia--Kidnapping and Transportation of persons from England to America--Caso of Peter Williamson--The Revolutionary War closes America against British Convicts--Australia selected as a penal colony--Horrible condition of Society, and the sufferings of tho oarly settlors--Tho Bush Rangers--Introduction of flocks and herds--A now class of Emigrants, and life among them--The discovery of gold--The future of Australia. Australia, sometimes denominated the Fifth, or Pick-pocket Continent, is the largest island in the world, and about the size of Europe. Its form approaches a square, and the extreme distance across it from east to west, is 3000, and from north to south 200C miles--the first measurement being something greater than the distance from Boston, Mass., across the continent of North America to San Francisco in California, and the second twice the distance from New York to the Mississippi River. A few discoveries were made on the coast of Australia one hundred and thirty years after the discovery of America, but no reliable information was obtained until a century later, when it was successively visited by several Dutch navigators, and the name of New Holland given. Yet it was not until five years previous to the outhreak of the American Revolution, that was revealed to the civilized world that it was a continent. This was through the instrumentality of the celebrated Capt. Cook, who surveyed its eastern coast, and came to the conclusion perhaps dimly surmised by previous navigators. The island is mostly surrounded by almost contin...