Page:History of New South Wales from the records, Volume 1.djvu/44

 j[xxvi AN INTRODUCTORY latitudes from 64° to 40* south." Tliese confident assertions proved to be nothing more than imagination ; and it was to settle the question raised by them that Cook was sent a second time into the South Pacific. While there is no doubt that the name Terra Australis was sometimes applied to the discovered portions of this country two centuries ago, there was no more reason for giving it to them than there would have been for giving it to the New Hebrides or Juan Fernandez. A chart of the islands discovered in the South Sea to the year 1620, published in Burney's Col- lection of Voyages, shows an outline of the north-west coast marked '^Part of the Great Terra Australis"; and speaking of the discoveries of de Quiros, he said : — "The Australia del Espiritu Santo was long supposed to be part of the Great Terra Australis, and in some charts of so recent a date as the middle of the eighteenth century, the two lands are drawn joined." He referred to the charts published by do Brosses, which were drawn by the geographer in ordinary to the King of France — a title conferred by letters patent as a reward for distinguished services. The French cartographers were celebrated for their charts and map- pemondes even in the earliest years of their art. To understand exactly what the old geographers had in their minds when they wrote about Terra Australis, wo must go back at least three centuries, when the theory of its existence was in high favour among them. What they thought about it may be seen in the map of the world published with the account of Frobisher's voyages in the year 1578, and the description of the country given by the writer : — Terra Axistralis seemeth to be a great firme land, lying under and aboute the south pole, being in many places a f ruitef ull soyle, and is not yet thorowly discovered, but onlye scene and touched on the north edge therof, by the travaile of the Portingales and Spaniards, in their voyages to their East and Weast Indies, It is included almost by a paralell, passing at 40 degi*ees in soutli latitude, yet in some places it reacheth into the sea with greate promon- tories, even into the tropicke Capricornus. Onely these partes are best Digitized by Google