Phillipsland

The Sydney Morning Herald

4 October 1847

In the Melbourne Argus is a copy of a letter addressed by Dr. Lang to Earl Grey, with respect to the erection of the district of Port Phillip into a separate colony.

A large portion of this letter is devoted to prove that the names given to the different portions of this continent, such as South Australia, North Australia, and Western Australia, are neither distinctive nor appropriate.

That Port Phillip would be the name of a harbour or town, and not of a province; and he proposes the new colony should be called Phillipsland. The boundaries he proposes to the new colony are:-

A line from Cape Howe to Mount Kosciusco in the Australian Alps; from thence to the nearest sources of the Tumut or Doomut River; then along that river to its junction with the Murrumbidgee; and then along the Murrumbidgee and the Murray Rivers to the embouchure of the latter of these rivers in the Lake Alexandrina and the Great Southern Ocean.