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notes made by Burgomaster Wilson, in ] 705, are the only 

 particulars that we know about it, except the " Instructions " 

 above mentioned, which were given to Tasman by Antonio 

 Van Diemen, the Governor, and the Council of the Dutch 

 East Indies, and dated at Batavia the 29th January, 1644, -.j 



With reference to the British Museum chart, of which I beg 

 to present to the Boyal Society the photo-lithographed fac- 

 similes, Major says: "It bears no name or date, but is 

 written on exactly the same kind of paper, with the same ink, 

 and by the same hand as one by Captain Thomas Bowrey in 

 the same volume, done at Fort S. George in 1687. It is 

 observable that in the preface to a work by Captain Bowrey 

 on the Malay language, he says that in 1688 he embarked at 

 Fort S, George as a passenger for England, having been, 

 nineteen years in the East Indies continually engaged in. 

 navigation and trading in those countries, in Sumatra, Borneo, 

 Bantam, and Java." Major goes on to say : " The twofold 

 blunder, both as to fact and date, contained in the sentence 

 in the middle of the chart — ' This large land of New Guinea 

 was first discovered to joyne to if south, land by y e yot 

 Lemmen as by this chart Francois Jacobus, Vis. Pilot Major, 

 Anno 1643 '—is self-evidently an independent subsequent 

 insertion, probably by Bowrey himself, and therefore by no 

 means impugns the inference that the chart is otherwise a. 

 genuine copy." 



When I saw the chart it was not bound in a volume, so I 

 had no opportunity of comparing its paper, ink, and hand- 

 writing with those of the other chart referred to by Major, so 

 I accept his opinion as correct that probably the copy was the 

 handiwork of Captain Bowrey. But I cannot accept the 

 statements that the chart bears no name or date, and that the 

 inscription in the middle of it " is self-evidently an indepen- 

 dent subsequent insertion." This second statement is, of 

 course, necessary to support the first, as if the inscription is 

 not a subsequent insertion the chart cannot be said to bear 

 any name or date. So far from the inscription being self- 

 evidently an independent subsequent insertion, I think the 

 evidence all points the other way. The error in the date is 

 no doubt the fault of Captain Bowrey, or whoever else was 

 the copyist of the chart and translator into English of the 

 Dutch inscriptions on the original, but I take it that the 

 wording of it shows that it is a translation of the chief 

 pilot's inscription on the chart he prepared aud sent in as the 

 official return to the orders of the " Instructions " with refer- 

 ence to discovering " whether Nova Guinea is one continent 

 with that great southland." It is barely possible that Bowrey 

 could have known of this instruction, which the original 

 writer of the inscription must evidently have known to be the 

 great object of the voyage of the Lemmen and her consorts. 



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