Page:History of New South Wales from the records, Volume 1.djvu/698

 5T4 BIBUOGRAPHY Biblio- Valentyn: — Oud en Nieuw Oost-Indien, &c., Door Frangois fipraphy. Valentyn. Folio, 5 vols. Amsterdam, 1724—6. " Yol. iv (p. 194) contains a fine portrait of Antonio Van Diemen, Gouverneur General von Nederlands Indien. Dampier: — A Collection of Yoyages, In four volumes, con- taining Captain William Dampier's Voyage Bound the World, &c. Illustrated with maps and draughts : also several birds, fishes, and plants, not found in this part of the world : curiously engraved on copper-plates. 8vo., 4 vola London, 1729. This edition contains several other voyages in addition to Dampier's. Another edition of Captain Dampier*s Voyages, with con- siderable variations in the text as compared with that of 1729, appeared in Harris's Voyages (Navigantium atque Itinerantium Bibliotheca), vol. ii, p. 865. London, 1705. The geographers of the early part of the eighteenth century con- tinued to describe the Terra Australis after the manner of their predecessors, adding from time to time the names given to new dis- coveries, chiefly those of the Dutch. Occasionally the philosophers discussed the subject : — Dissertatio Physica de Terra Australi, quam inclutse Facultatis Philoso- phies coDflensu eruditorum disqimitioni subjicit d. iv. Aprilis mdocx'I M. Johannes Augustus Rivinus, Lips. Respondente Friderico Wilelmo Prevsero, Nebra Thnring. S.S. Theol. Stud. Lipsise, small 4to, pp. 24. Of this period is a tract in the British Museum : — Terra Australis Incognita, posteritati relicta, Yestigiis ix Mon- stratis. 8 pp. folio. Helmstadii, 1741. Enterprise at home and abroad was too stagnant at this time for the encouragement or support of any colonising schemes. But the learned de Maupertuis having accepted an invitation from Frederick the Great to settle in Berlin, he there addressed his Letter to the King of Prussia on the Progress of the Sciences. Among the sciences which stood in need of the support of a sovereign were those connected with foreign discoveries, and first of all, that of TeiTa Australis. In the Terra Australis, the eminent savant believed there would be found species different from those contained in any other parts of the world, be- cause they never could have gone out of their own continent. Near it were islands in which navi^tors assure us they have seen savages, men covered with hair havine tails ; a middle species, between a monkey and a man. ** I would rather, he writes, *' have an hour's conversation with one of these than with the greatest wit in Europe." — See English translation in Appendix to The Schemer ; or, Universal Satirist, by that great Philosopher, Helter Van Scelter, London, 1765, pp. 249 et »eq. Maupertuis' suggestion was not to be lost It was taken up by an able advocate, Charles de Brosses, President of the Parliament Digitized by Google