CHAPTER XII 



QUIROS, TORRES AND COOK AND THE VAUGONDY AND 

 DALRYMPLE MAPS 



INSULARITY OF NEW GUINEA. KNOWN TO THE SPANISH AND PORTUGUESE. DENIED 

 BY THE DUTCH. PROVED BY TORRES, BUT PROOF LONG WITHHELD FROM PUBLICITY. 

 DEMONSTRATED BY COOK. 



WE have seen that, in 1606, PEDRO FERNANDEZ DE QUIROS 

 found a harbour which he named VERA CRUZ, on the 

 east side of one of the islands of the New Hebrides 

 group. Believing the land adjoining the harbour to 

 be the east coast of the southern continent, he named the sup- 

 posed continent LA AUSTRALIA DEL ESPIRITU SANTO, and selected a 

 site for its capital, which was to be called the New Jerusalem. 



Admiral (i.e., Second-in-Command) Luis DE VAES TORRES, 

 who parted with Quiros at Vera Cruz, threw a justifiable doubt on 

 Quiros' assumptions and sailed along the south coast of New Guinea. 

 He thus demonstrated though not for the first time the SEPARA- 

 TION OF NEW GUINEA FROM AUSTRALIA, a few months after the 

 Dutch vessel the " Duyjken " had made a voyage along the south- 

 west coast of New Guinea and the west coast of Cape York Peninsula, 

 which voyage left, as far as the Dutch were concerned, the question 

 of a strait unsettled. In 1623, CARSTENSZOON, in the " Pera" 

 decided that there was no strait, although the west coast of the 

 Peninsula was indented with a shallow bight. 



Carstenszoon's view as to the connection of New Guinea with 

 Australia was held by ROBERT DE VAUGONDY, one of the best-informed 

 geographers of the eighteenth century, when he and his father, 

 who was Geographer to the King of France, issued their magnificent 

 Atlas Universel, containing a map (on a globular projection) dated 

 1752. The map also showed Tasmania as a part of Australia, and 

 from Tasmania a " conjectural coast-line " ran north-eastward to 

 include Vera Cruz and then west-north-westward to take in the 

 north side of New Guinea, 1 in accordance with Tasman's ideas on 

 the conclusion of his voyage of 1642-3. 



Robert de Vaugondy issued another map (on Mercator's pro- 

 jection) in 1756, " pour servir de la lecture de 1'Histoire des Terres 

 Australes." This, which is generally known as " Vaugondy's 



1 This 1752 map is reproduced in Collingridge's work, p. 305, but transposed to a 

 plane projection. 



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