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
On the eastern side, we have in every respect greater inaccuracy; but
for the present we deal only with the question of latitude. For the sake
of convenience, our reduction of Rotz’s map is made to terminate at the
point where the eastern coast line of “the londe of Java terminates,”
namely in the sixtieth degree, a parallel far exceeding in its southing
even the southernmost point of Tasmania, which is in 43° 35´; but if we
look to the Dauphin map, we find that about ten degrees of the
southernmost portion of the line is indefinite, and it must not be
forgotten that for the Portuguese this was the remotest point for
investigation, and consequently the least likely to be definite. There
is, however, strong reason for supposing that the eastern side of
Tasmania was included within this coast line.
With respect to longitude, it may be advanced that with all the
discrepancies observable in the maps here presented, there is no other
country but Australia lying between the same parallels, and of the same
extent, between the east coast of Africa and the west coast of America,
and that Australia does in reality lie between the same meridians as the
great mass of the country here laid down. In Rotz’s map we have the
longitude reckoned from the Cape Verde islands, the degrees running
eastward from 1 to 360. The extreme western point of “the Londe of Java”
is in about 126° (102 E. from Greenwich), whereas the westernmost point
of Australia is in about 113° E. from Greenwich. The extreme eastern
points of “the Londe of Java” is in about 207° (or 183° E. from
Greenwich). The extreme eastern point however is on a peak of huge
extent, which is a manifest blunder or exaggeration. The longitude of
the easternmost side, excluding this peak, is in about 187° (or 163° E.
from Greenwich), whereas the easternmost point of Australia is in
something less than 154° E. from Greenwich. The difficulty of
ascertaining the longitude in those days is well known, and the
discoveries which these maps represent were, in all probability, made on
a variety of occasions, and had a continuous line given to them on maps,
not so much as an exact, but as an approximative guide to subsequent
explorers. It were hard indeed, therefore, if sufficient concession were
not made to the pioneers of maritime exploration, for the reconciliation
of these comparatively light discrepancies, when inaccuracies as
striking are observable in surveys made as late as in the eighteenth
century.
Thus in taking a general survey of the outline of this immense country,
we have this one striking fact presented to us, that the western side is
comprised between exactly the same parallels as the corresponding side
of Australia, allowance being made for the conjunction of Java, while
the eastern side presents the same characteristic as the eastern side of
Australia in being by far the longest.
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