xxxii AN INTRODUCTORY that it was an immense island — ^a sort of appendage to the little Java. On the other hand, the map drawn by Pierre Descelliers in 1550, — (p. 91), represents the unknown continent running round the South Pole, marked La Terre Australle. Both these maps have been accepted by modern geographers as authentic* When the Dutch began their explorations of our coast in the seventeenth century, they usually named their discoveries either after the captains who made them, or the ships in which they sailed. Dirk Hartog's discovery on the west coast was named Landt de Endraght, after his ship ; the land of Leeuwin was also called after the ship ; De Witt's Land obtained its name from the captain ; so also did the Land of Peter Nuyts, EdeFs Land, and Arnhem's Land. After the second voyage of Tasman in 1644, the country was called Hollandia Nova ; a name which passed into common use among European geographers, in its translated forms, until it was superseded by Australia. But according to Flinders — the original name, used by the Dutch themselves imtil some time after Tasman's second voyage in 1644, was Terra Australis or Great South Land ; and when it was displaced by New Holland, the new term was applied only to the parts lying westward of a meridian line passing through Amheim's Land on the north and near the isles of St. Prancis and St. Peter on the south ; all to the eastward, including the shores of the Gulph of Carpentaria, still remained as Terra Australis. f The only authority mentioned by Flinders for this statement is a chart published by Thevenot in 1667, which '^ was originally taken from that done, in inlaid work, upon the pavement of the new Stadt House at Amsterdam.'^ A chart done on a pavement doss not appear to furnish much reliable evidence ; but on the strength of it Flinders seems to have come to the conclusion that Terra Australis was the proper name for the whole country in his own day ; and for that reason he sought to revive its use, in preference even to the name Australia. A little consideration will show that he had no substantial grounds for his conclusion.
- Tasman'fl instructions directed him to take a certain course, bj which "the
known south hind would be entirely circumnayigated, and disoorered to be the largest island of the globe." — Major, Early Voyages to Terra AustraliB, p. 49. t Voyage to Terra Australis, introduction, p. ii. Digitized by Google
