FLIN'DERS, MArrnEw ( 1774-1814) . An English navigator and hydrographer, born at Donington, Lincolnshire. He studied geometry and navigation by himself, and in 1790 entered the Royal Navy as a midshipman. After active service in.European waters and in the 'West Indies, he was attached in 1795 to the Reliance. with which lie sailed to Australia. There he spent five years, devoting the greater part of his time to geographical discoveries and coast sur veys. Flinders circumnavigated Tasmania in a small sloop, and made exact geographical obser vations and calculations regarding the island. He was promoted a lieutenant in 1798, and on his return to England was placed in command of the ship Investigator, with instructions to return to New Holland, a-s Australia was then called, and complete a systematic survey of its coast. Flinders sailed from England in July, 1801, and beginning with Cape Leeuwin on the southwest coast, he spent the following two years in trac ing and mapping the coast-line east and north ward as far as the Gulf of Carpentaria on the north coast. Being unable to complete the sur
vey of the west coast, owing to the unseawo•thi ness of the Investigator, he started to return to England in a small ship, but having unfortunate ly stopped at Mauritius on his way, he was de tained there a prisoner for six and a half years. Released at length, he returned to England broken in health, and completed the account of his voy age and discoveries only a short time before his death. He was promoted to the grade of captain in 1810. Flinders ranks as one of the world's greatest hydrographerst and his survey of the Australian coast still forms the basis for the modern charts. He was also the first successfully to investigate the errors of the compass due to the attraction of iron in a ship. His account of his voyage was published in the year of his death ( 1814). under the title Voyage to Terra Aus tralis (2 vols. with atlas). Consult also a "Memoir" in the Nara] Chronicle, vol. xxxii. ( London, 1815).