46 A PRELIMINARY CRITIQUE OF THE TERRA AUSTRALIS LEGEND. 



salior cogniti orhis tabula " — under the name " Terra sancte 

 crucis sive Mundus novus," but which was known to French 

 sailors as " Terre de Bresil." 



II. MISCONCEPTIONS OP FRENCH CARTOGRAPHERS. 



At the time of the ^publication of the Novtcs Orhis a French, 

 geographer and mathematician, named Oronce Fine, had just 

 published, perhaps in Venice, a heart-shaped map of the 

 world, — the second of its kind known to us. It was entitled, 

 Nova et Integra universi orMs descriptio, and dated 1531. This 

 map was issued a second time in 1532 in the Paris edition of 

 the Novus Orhis. It represents a Terra Australis brought up 

 to about 25 deg. S. in longitude 210 deg. to 240 deg. E. from 

 Ferro, and bearing the legend " Terra Australis recenter 

 inventa sed nondum plene cognita,^^ a phrase of which the 

 " sed nondum imploravere " of de Jode's map sounds like an 

 echo. There is no Begio Psittacorum on Fine's map, but there 

 is what we have seen to be its true equivalent, a Regio 

 JBrasilie, transferred, however, from its true American 

 position to the legendary Terra Australis without further note 

 or comment, and as if to clinch the error, a JRegio Patalis, 

 or pratalis as well, that is, the country of silver, of La 

 Plata. 



This obvious and hopeless confusion of places was further 

 augmented in the MS. maps of other French cartographers. 

 JeanEotz, Guillaume le Testu, Nicholas Desliens, and others, 

 mostly Norman pilots, represent a country which they 

 denominate " Jave la Grande," midway between Africa and 

 South America, and inscribe on it a number of names, some 

 in French and some in Portuguese, and the figures of men 

 and animals. That this Jave la Grrande is only an imaginary 

 place is admitted by one of the draughtsmen himself. In a 

 MS. atlas, finished in 1555, and dedicated to Admiral de 

 Coligny, who was then sending out a Huguenot colony to 

 Brazil, are twelve maps niimbered xxxi. to xliii., in which the 

 space comprised between 1 deg. and 84 deg. S. is occupied bj 

 a fertile country. " But these twelve maps," says their 

 author, Guillaume le Testu, of the town of Fran9oyse de 

 Gra.ce, " are only meant to warn those who may voyage in 

 these parts to be careful when they think they are approaching 

 land. Further than that, all is im.aginary, for no man has 

 made any certain discovery there." (Margry, Navigations 

 franraises, p. 138.) The title " Jave la Grande " on these 

 charts is derived from the travels of Marco Polo, who 

 designated Borneo under the name " Java," whilst the island 

 known to us as Java was named by him " Java Minor." 

 {Marco Polo's Travels, edited by W. Marsden. Book iii., 

 chap, vii.) The coast lines and coast names are not, as Le 

 . Testu says, *' all imaginary," for they are in part derived from 



