EARLY DISCOVERIES. 



THE GREAT AUSTRALIAN BARRIER REEF. 



acquaintance of these monsters; but one man, Tasman's carpenter, was hardy enough to 



enter the surf, bearing in his hand a pole from which floated, the flag of the Nether- 

 lands. This he stuck into the sand, thereby taking possession of one of the most 



lovely islands of the Southern Hemisphere, on which neither he nor his fellows again 

 .set foot, and which his countrymen made not the least effort to colonize. 



Tasman gave the name of his patron to the coast he had discovered, and for 



many years it was known to maritime history as Van Diemen's Land. He did not, 



however, know that it 



was an island. He was 



content with what he 



had seen, and held on 



his course to the east, 



where he became the 



first discoverer of New 



Zealand and many 



smaller islands ; then 



turning homewards he 



reached Batavia, after 



an absence of nearly 



ten months. He was 



probably the first to 



chart the Australasian coasts from actual observation ; but the ungenerous policy of his 



countrymen left all the work to be done over again by subsequent voyagers. 



In 1644, Van Diemen once more sent out an expedition under Tasman, consisting of 

 three vessels, the Limmcn, the Zeemeuw, and the tender, DC Braak the express objects 

 of the voyage being an examination of the northern shores of New Holland. So secret, 

 however, were the movements of the Dutch that we know very little of the results, 

 although we can follow Tasman's track in the names Limmen Bight, " Sweer's " and 



'Maria" Islands, and other geographical appellations in the Gulf of Carpentaria, which 

 identify him with at least one portion of the work he was sent out to perform. 

 Indeed, Major gives the credit of the discovery of the Gulf of Carpentaria to Tasman, 

 who in all probability named it after Pieter Carpenter, Governor-General of the Company 

 of the Indies between the years 1623 and 1627, who returned to Europe in 1628 with 

 seven vessels, one of which was the famed I'iancn, commanded in all likelihood by that 

 I)c \\'itt whose name is borne by a portion of the northern coast. At any rate Tas- 

 man's narrative of this voyage, although not published, must, in the opinion of Major, 

 have been in existence, as Burgomaster Witsen in a work on the migrations of the 

 human race, which appeared in 1 705, gives some notes on the inhabitants of New Guinea 

 and New Holland, and in these Tasman is quoted among those from whom he gained his 

 information, and it is the outline of the coasts visited in this voyage which is repre- 

 sented in the mosaic map laid down, in 1648, on the floor of the Groote Zaal of the 

 Stad-huys of Amsterdam. In the meantime the territory had been claimed by the Dutch 

 under the name of New Holland, but no effort was made to utilize the discovery, and 

 nearly half a century passed before attention was again directed to it. 



