George Bass

George Bass ( born January 30, 1771 in Aswarby in Sleaford, † 1803) was an English explorer. He walked around with Matthew Flinders Tasmania and explored the strait between mainland Australia and Tasmania, which is named after him as Bass Strait.

Life

Bass was born in Aswarby, near Sleaford, Lincolnshire, the son of farmers. Little is known of his youth except that he lost his father quite young and completed a Kurarztausbildung in Boston. Since it was his childhood dream to become a sailor, he hired on various Mediterranean expeditions. One of them was shipwrecked off Bodrum. In February 1795 Bass sailed to New Holland ( Dutch Brazil), and got on board Matthew Flinders know. In tow, he had a small boat, the Tom Thumb, just big enough in order to affect ocean margins.

Quickly Bass and Flinders became friends and mused about what a unique opportunity to accidentally spoke to them, they would complete the incomplete records of the southeast coast of New South Wales, and they planned then, this area to travel. The travelogue of this expedition, which led the Botany Bay southward, Governor John Hunter fell into the hands and led to the colonization of Bankstown, one of the first settlements, which were established in Australia.

The Tom Thumb, however, licked by this expedition. Bass and Flinders initially rose to a whaler, with whom she discovered a lake road between Tasmania and Australia. Then Hunter Bass gave his biggest expedition in order. Flinders and he should walk around Port Jackson from Tasmania. Should be made ​​possible with the 25 -ton Norfolk.

On October 7, 1798, the Norfolk ran out, circled the Tasmanian mainland and returned to Sydney on 12 January 1799. That same year, Bass returned to England, where he married in 1800 Elizabeth Waterhouse. Already in 1801 he returned to Australia and continued touring the surrounding island groups. On 5 February 1803 he stabbed his last expedition to Peru in the lake. What exactly happened to him there is unknown. Rumors spoke of an accident on the high seas to an attack by the Spanish.

Effect

After George Bass are named:

• The strait between Australia and Tasmania, the Bass Strait (English Bass Strait).
• A group of small rocky islands, the Bass Rocks, now known as Marotiri.
• The Bass Islands, a group of three islands to the west of Lake Erie
• The Bass Islands, an archipelago of the island nation of the Solomon Islands belonging Duff Islands