xlii 



earth's surface. Unfortunately wliere 

 knowledjje was wanting he tilled u]) with 

 theory. Tlius he aljandoned the ancient idea 

 of the all encircling ocean-stream, and 

 ventured on an assumption making the 

 Indian Ocean an inland sea like the Medi- 

 terranean, and extending Africa on the 

 south and Asia on the east, as continents 

 of immeasurable extent. Ptolemy was 

 the last of the ancient geographers, 

 and for more than a thousand years 

 he and his theories held supreme sway 

 in geogTaphical matters. Some of these 

 theories respecting the unknown parts 

 of the world had a distinctly retarding 

 effect on exploration, and were not dis- 

 posed of until the great era of maritime 

 discovery in the 11th centurj*. During the 

 Dark Middle Ages even Ptolemy was for- 

 gotten, and men's ideas of geography grew 

 chaotic. The flame of learning was kept 

 feebly alive in the great monasteries, but 

 the monks despised science, and devoted 

 their care wholly to theological works. 

 They some times illustrated these works 

 Avith a 'iiiapjjamnndi {mappa, a towel ; 

 mmdi, of the world, as their maps were 

 usually drawn on linen). Such mappae 

 omindi have ^yeen preserved in MSS. of 

 Beatus' Commentary on the Apocalj^pse 

 (776 A.D.). A facsimile of one of these, the 

 original of which was drawn about the 

 time of the Norman Conquest, will show 

 "what a fantastic jumble was made by 

 these monkish cartographers, who grouped 

 all the countries of the world haphazard 

 round Jerusalem as a centre. The 

 first advance in geographical krowledge 

 came from the gi^eat religious movement 

 which poured the hosts of Europe into the 

 East during the period of the Crusades — 

 1095 to 1270— in the time of Wm. Rufus 

 and Coeur de Lion down to Edward I. 

 Immediately following the Crusades came 

 the era of land travel, when Marco Polo 

 the Venetian, chat prince of medieval 

 travellers, made his way (1277, temp., 

 Edward I.) to the Court of Kublai Khan 

 in Pekin, and brought back to Europe 

 marvellous tales of far Cathay (China), 

 Zipangu (.Japan), India, of distant Java, 

 and the countries of the far East. Nearly 

 a century later, in the reign of our Edward 

 III., say 1350, when the mariner's compass 

 came into use, and made distant voyages 

 possible, the era of ocean discovery began. 

 In this the Genoese captains led the way. 

 These Genoese, disregarding the theories 

 of geographers, began to construct sea- 

 charts— or as they called them "porto- 

 lani " — from their own observations, and 

 solely with a view to practical use in their 

 voyages. It was then that cartosrraphy 

 first began to make substantial advances. 

 From 1410 to 1460— in the time of King 

 Henry V. down to the Wars of the Roses— 

 the Portuguese, under Prince Henry the 

 Navigator, courageously pushed their 



caravels out into the mysterious i^tlantic 

 called by the Arabian geographers the 

 ''Green Sea of Darkness," in which the 

 voyager was l)elieved to be swallowed up 

 in impenetral>le fogs. They dared to pass 

 througli the tropic seas which, in the 

 popular imagination, were always boiling 

 under the fierce rays of the vertical sun. 

 So they crept down the coast of Africa, 

 and made the first step to the discovery of 

 the outer world. By .the time of Prince 

 Henry's death (1460, contemporary with 

 the Wars of the Roses) a cartographer, 

 like the Italian Fra Mauro, could con- 

 struct a map (1457-59) containing a fairly 

 recognisable representation of Europe, 

 Asia, and Africa, surrounded by the 

 ocean. Beyond this nothing was known. 

 It remained for Columbus, in the closing 

 years of the century — 1492, temp Henry 

 VII. — ^to lift the veil from the unknown 

 and realise the ancient dream of a mythi- 

 cal Atlantis, hy his discovery of America. 

 In the earlier maps after Columbus we 

 find the persistent influence of traditional 

 ideas. America is represented as an island 

 closely approaching China and India ; 

 whence the name West Indies. Magellan'^s 

 voj^age across the Pacific in 1521 (temp 

 Henry VIII.), revolutionised men's ideas, 

 and from that time we find the carto- 

 graphers depicting the world more or less 

 in accordance with our modern notions. 

 Columbus had given to the world a real 

 America for the fabled Atlantis. The 

 problem of the Great Southland was 

 longer in being solved. The ancient myth 

 died haid, in fact we find traces of it 

 lingering for 300 years more, down to near 

 the close of last century. I do not propose 

 to enter on the thorny paths of the con- 

 troversy respecting the earliest indications 

 of Australia, or to decide on the rival 

 claims of different nations. The subject 

 has been fully discussed by Major, Delmar 

 Morgan, Collingridge, and others, and in 

 their works full information can be found. 

 Suffice it to say, that somewhere be- 

 tween 1514-42 (temp Henry VIII. and 

 Luther's Reformation) the Portuguese, 

 who had just discovered New Guinea, 

 almost certainly, while cruising in the 

 Eastern Archipelago, sighted some parts of 

 the N.W. and possibly of the N.E. coasts of 

 Australia, and we find vague and 

 inaccurate indications of their discovery 

 in maps about 1540. (The Royal Society 

 has a fine reproduction of these maps). 

 If to the Portuguese belongs the honour 

 of having first sighted Australian shores, 

 it is to the Dutch, and to the Dutch alone, 

 that the credit is due of its actual dis- 

 covery, i.e., if by discover}' we mean a de- 

 finite knowledge of its position. The Dutch 

 claims have been much debated, and it has 

 been sometimes asserted that their maps 

 were, for the most part, copied from the 

 charts or descriptions of Portuguese and 



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