462 „ .^ ' 'proceedings of section e. 



pounded receives sanction from many quarters, especially 

 from the Memorials of De Quiros and of Jean Paulmier. 



Here I must close this investigation for the present. If 

 any proof were required of the complete absence of all con- 

 nection between the theory of a Terra Australis and the 

 geographical fact of the Australian continent, it would surely 

 be found herein — that the belief in the former persisted for a 

 hundred years after Australia was visited and mapped by 

 Dutch navigators. And yet to this day a confusion exists 

 between these distinct phenomena, which blurs the out- 

 lines of early Australian history. That history may be 

 compared to the history of three streams which have their 

 source in an unknown and half mythical country. There is 

 the stream of Portuguese ascendancy in the East. That 

 stream undergoes changes beginning in the end of the sixteenth 

 century, and from being Portuguese becomes first Spanish 

 then l3utch. Then there is the stream of Spanish conquest 

 passing through Spanish America, A Cortes saw it flow, 

 unwitting whither it went, a De Quiros sailed over its waters, 

 but they bore him to no certain haven. Lastly, there was the 

 French stream, romantic in its origin and flow, its waters 

 liberated at the touch of a native of the mythical land, dis- 

 closed to the world's view by his descendant after three genera- 

 tions of silence and only disappearing late in time on the 

 borderland of English enterprise and colonisation. To trace 

 the course of these parent streams, and to discriminate them 

 from their tributary waters is the task of the man who would 

 map out the various origins of the history of Australia. 



7.— DISPATCHES FROM THE ELDER EXPLORING 

 EXPEDITION. 



By HON. D. MURRAY. 



8.— LIFE AND WORK OF SIR JOHN FRANKLIN. 



By A. C. MACDONALD, F.R.G.S. 



