Page:History of New South Wales from the records, Volume 1.djvu/47

 SKETCH.' ;txxvii knowen, as over against Capo d* Imona Speranza (where the Portingales see popingayes commonly of a wonderfull greatnesse), and againe it is knowen at the south side of the straight of Magellanus, and is called Terra del Fuego. It is thoughte this southlande, about the pole Antartike, is farre bigger than the north land aboute the pole Artike ; but whether it be so or not, we have no certaine knowledge, for we have no particular descrip- tion hereof, as we have of the lande under and aboute the north pole.* This is perhaps the earliest description we have of the supposed continent from the pen of an English geographer. How the idea was gradually developed in succeeding ages may be seen from a short statement of it in Purchas, whose folios appeared in 1625. Speaking of ^^ the Lands on the Southerne side of the [Magellan] Straits/' he says : — This Land about the Straits is not perfectly discovered, whether it be Continent or Islands. Some take it for Continent and extend it more in their imagination than any man's experience, towards those Islands of Saloman and New Guinee, esteeming (of which there is great probability) that Terra Atiatralis or the Southerne Continent, may for the largeness thereof, take up a first place in order, and the first in greatnesse in the division and parting of the Whole World. As stated by Bnmey, the Tierra del Fuego was considered to be ^'part of a great continent, extending both eastward and westward to New Guinea, and round the South Pole, occupying nearly all the space which had not been cut off by the tracks of European navigators ; and this ideal continent they have not left destitute of its capes and gulfs."t The opinions of the men who furnished the world with geography in those days have not yet lost their interest for us, and therefore a further passage from Purchas may be quoted for the purpose of showing how they arrived at conclusions which nowadays seem so extra- ordinary. He gives as his authority one Master Brerewood, professor of Astronomy in Gresham College from 1596 to 1613 : Master Breerewood, our Learned Countryman, persuadeth himself tliat it is as large as the Easteme Continent, which containeth Europe, • A True Discouree on the late Voyages of DiscoTerie under the conduct of Martin Frobisher, General. — Hakluyt Society, pp. 36-7. t Voyages in the South Sea, vol. i, p. 303.— The Tierra del Fuego is drawn as part of La Terre Australle in the chart made by John Rotz, 1542; ib., p. 380. Digitized by Google