Ii8 THE DISCOVERY OF AUSTRALIA 



by the Portuguese between the years 1511 and 1529, 

 O f and almost a demonstrable certainty that it was dis- 

 covered before the year 1542." On the West coast he 

 is able to identify Exmouth Gulf, Shark Bay, and Hout- 

 man's Abrolhos ; on the East coast he thinks it "by no 

 means improbable " that " Baye Neufve " is Bass's Straits, 

 and that " Gouffre " is Oyster Bay in Tasmania; and 

 it " may be fairly presumed that the islands in the extreme 

 East . . . represent New Zealand." Mr. Collingridge is 

 still more prepared to go into detail, and to explain every 

 feature of these maps in terms of modern Australian 

 geography. And both Mr. Major and Mr. Collingridge 

 are able to explain all apparent difficulties in a way that, 

 they claim, makes their argument more convincing than 

 ever. 



We should begin by recognizing that these authors 

 are right when they remind us that the many and great 

 unlikenesses of Jave la Grande to Australia do not prove 

 that it does not represent real knowledge. If the Portuguese 

 discovered Australia before 1542, and drew a map of it, 

 that map would certainly be unlike Australia in many 

 important respects. And especially we should expect 

 to find big mistakes in regard to Longitude. Seamen 

 in those days were able to find their Latitudes with fair 

 correctness, but the most skilful were, as they confessed, 

 mere guessers when they were calculating Longitude. 

 At a time when cosmographers were making Newfound- 

 land a promontory of Siberia, and Mexico a part of China, 

 there would be no sort of professional discredit in placing 

 Australia far too much to the West. And other re- 

 markable unlikenesses may easily be explained as mis- 

 takes, provided the likenesses are sufficient to convince 

 us of identity. 



Nevertheless, I regard the claim that has been advanced 

 on behalf of these maps with suspicion : and mainly for 

 the following reasons. 



In the first place, it seems to me exceedingly unlikely 

 that voyages took place during this period that would 

 have enabled cosmographers to draw maps of the Western, 



