Early Voyages to Terra Australis, Now Called Australia:: A Collection of Documents, and Extracts from Early Manuscript Maps, Illustrative of the History of Discovery on the Coasts of That Vast Island, from the Beginning of the Sixteenth Century to the Time of Captain Cook.Major, Richard Henry
History
Early Voyages to Terra Australis, Now Called Australia:: A Collection of Documents, and Extracts from Early Manuscript Maps, Illustrative of the History of Discovery on the Coasts of That Vast Island, from the Beginning of the Sixteenth Century to the Time of Captain Cook.
Major, Richard Henry
Australia -- Discovery and exploration; Discoveries in geography -- Portuguese; Voyages and travels
We have quoted this somewhat long passage respecting Lord North’s
Island, as having an incidental interest in connexion with M. Barbié du
Bocage’s argument; but whatever may really have been the island on which
Sequeira was driven, it seems clear that it could not have been in the
direction of Endeavour Strait as inferred by that geographer.
Having thus shown the surmises which have been suggested by geographers
of good repute with respect to the main question of the discovery of
Australia in the early part of the sixteenth century, and explained, as
he hopes satisfactorily, the errors into which they have fallen in their
attempts at explanation, the editor will now lay before the reader his
own reasons for concluding that Australia is the country which these
maps describe.
The first question that will naturally arise is—how far does the country
thus represented, correspond in latitude, longitude, and outline with
the recognized surveys of Australia as delineated in modern maps? And if
the discrepancies exposed by the comparison do not forbid the
supposition that Australia is the country represented on the early maps,
the inquiry will then suggest itself—how, with any satisfactory show of
reason, may these discrepancies be accounted for? To both these
questions, the editor believes that he can give acceptable answers.
And first as respects latitude. In all of these maps, the latitude of
the north of Java, which is the first certain starting point, is
correct. The south coast of Java, or “the lytil Java,” though separated
from “Java la Grande,” or the “Londe of Java,” by a narrow channel, as
shown in the maps here given, has no names which indicate any pretension
to a survey. There is enough proximity between the two to suggest alike
the possibility of a connection or of a separation of the two countries.
In the absence of so many words, the maps show as plainly as possible
that it was as yet an unsettled question. With this fact, therefore,
before us, implying, as it does, both conscientiousness in the
statements on the maps, and the confession of an imperfect survey of the
whole of the coasts supposed to be laid down, we have no difficulty in
giving credence to the pretension that the great southern land there
represented was, with all its errors, a reality and not a fiction. In
all fairness, therefore, we pass the question of junction between the
little and the great Java, as a point virtually declared to be
unsettled, and supposing the latter to be Australia, test our
supposition by inquiring as to the correctness of the latitude in which
the coast line terminates on the western side. Here again we find exact
correctness. In the one (Rotz’s map), the line ceases altogether at 35°,
the real south-western point of Australia, and in the other at the same
point all description ceases, and a meaningless line is drawn to the
margin of the map, implying that no further exploration had been made.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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