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The chart depicts the South Australian coastline from Encounter Bay to the Head of the Australian Bight. Matthew Flinders discovered this unknown coast between January and early April 1802. He had made a proposal to the British Government regarding the exploration of the unknown southern coast of Australia and had left England in July 1801 to carry out this task. A French expedition with the same task had left Le Havre, France in October 1800, but with a complicated schedule of other duties did not head to the unknown coast until April 1802 and approached from Tasmania. Flinders' chart however was not published until July 1814 because of his six year detention on Mauritius. This enabled the French expedition's charts to be published ahead of his in 1811.

Flinders was the first European surveyor of this stretch of coast from the head of the Great Australian Bight to Encounter Bay . The chart covers the area explored by Flinders between 27 January to 8 April 1802, including the site of the 1802 encounter between Flinders and Baudin. Inset charts of Nuyts Archipelago (Flinders named the Islands of Saint Peter and Saint Francis the Nuyts Archipelago in honour of their first discoverer Pieter Nuyts and Francois Thyssen, 1627), Port Lincoln and the head of Spencer Gulf are included. The chart includes soundings and notes on currents, coastal vegetation and terrain.

Flinders named Yorke Peninsula for Charles Philip Yorke, First Lord of the Admiralty, and wrote of it: 'Yorke's Peninsula between [the gulfs], is singular in its form, bearing some resemblance to a very ill-shaped leg and foot. The length of the southern part, from Cape Spencer to the sandy point near Troubridge Shoal, is about forty-five miles; and from thence northward, to where the peninsula joins the main land, about sixty miles.' (Flinders, vol. 1, p. 181)

Flinders, Matthew, 1774-1814

Flinders, Matthew, A voyage to Terra Australis ... Adelaide: Libraries Board of South Australia, 1966

Cooper, H. M. The unknown coast: being the explorations of Captain Matthew Flinders, along the shores of South Australia 1802 Adelaide: The author, 1953 (Adelaide: Advertiser Printing Office)

Fornasiero, F. J. Encountering Terra Australis: the Australian voyages of Nicolas Baudin and Matthew Flinders Kent Town, South Australia : Wakefield Press, 2004

Estensen, Miriam The life of Matthew Flinders Crows Nest, N.S.W.: Allen & Unwin, 2002

Encounter 1802-2002

State Library of New South Wales: Discover collections: Flinders' journeys

Australian dictionary of biography online: Flinders, Matthew (1774-1814)

State Library of South Australia: Mortlock Wing. Taking it to the edge August 2004-