The Isle Of Pines (1668): and An Essay in Bibliography by Worthington Chauncey FordNeville, Henry
General
The Isle Of Pines (1668): and An Essay in Bibliography by Worthington Chauncey Ford
Neville, Henry
Voyages, Imaginary -- Early works to 1800
Such an expanse of undiscovered land, believed to be rich in gold,
awakened the resolution of Pedro Fernandez de Queiros, who had been a
pilot in the Mendafia voyage of 1606. By chance he failed in his object,
and deceived by the apparent continuous coast line presented to his view
by the islands of the New Hebrides group, he gave it the resounding
name of Austrialia del Espiritu Santo, because of the King's title of
Austria. On the publication of his "Relation" at Seville in 1610, the
name was altered, and he claimed to have discovered the "fourth part of
the world, called Terra Australis incognita." Seven years later, [45]in
1617, it was published in London under the title, "Terra Australia
incognita, or A new Southerne Discoverie, containing a fifth part of
the World." It is obvious that geographers and their source of
information--the adventurous sea captains--were not agreed upon the
proper number to be assigned to the Terra Australis in the world scheme.
Even in 1663 the Church seemed in doubt, for a father writes "Mémoires
touchant l'établissement d'une Mission Chrestienne dans la troisième
Monde, autrement apellé la Terre Australe, Méridionale, Antartique, &
I connue."{1} That Neville even drew his title from any of these
publications cannot be asserted, nor do they explain his designation of
the Isle of Pines as the fourth island in this southern land; but they
show the common meaning attached to Terra Australis incognita, and his
use of the words was a clever, even if not an intentional appeal to the
curiosity then so active on continents yet to be discovered.
1 Printed at Paris by Claude Cramoisy, 1663. A copy is in
the John Carter Brown Library. In 1756 Charles de Brosse
published his Histoire des Navigations aux Terres Australes
from Vespuccius to his own day, which was largely used by
John Callender in compiling his Terra Australis Cogmta,
1766-68.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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