it appears under the microscope with a ljin, objective. The key also 

 contains short generic description; these in conjunction with the 

 list of Tasmanian genera, their authors, the English meanings of the 

 generic names, and the habit of each genus, in the body of the paper, 

 will afford assistance that has been long required in the pursuit of this 

 branch of cryptogamic botany. Mr. Bastow must be congratulated on 

 having completed a scheme which has cost him a great amount of 

 labour, and which ought to be thoroughly appreciated by those for 

 whose benefit it has been worked out. Several beautiful specimens 

 of mosses, mounted in glycerine jelly, were exhibited under the 

 microscope, and by the use of the spot lens, the natural colours 

 of the plants were vividly brought out. 



THE DISCOVERT OF AUSTRALIA BY THE PORTUGUESE, 



In reference to the presentation of photo-lithographs of four early 

 charts of Australia, Mr. J. K. McClymont made the following remarks : — 

 " The maps lying on the table are photo-lithographs, in part or whole, 

 of four MS. maps of the sixteenth century, taken from the originals 

 in the British Museum at the instance of the Trustees of the Melbourne, 

 Sydney, and Adelaide Public Libraries. 



" In order that you may fully understand their place and significance 

 in the geographical history of Australia, it is necessary to revert to a 

 period considerably anterior to that of their execution. 



"Prom very early times there existed a belief in a southern con- 

 tinent, as Mr. Major shows by references to Manilius, Aratus and 

 Strabo. Pomponius Mela, writing in the first century after Christ, 

 inquires whether Taprobana, to the south of India, be an island or the 

 commencement of a second world [insula ant -prima pars alterius 

 orbis) and Ptolemy (2nd century) places a terra incognita to 

 the south of the Indian Ocean, connecting Asia with Africa, 

 and forming that ocean into an inland sea. The myth may have 

 arisen from the supposed necessity for a southern tract of land to counter- 

 balance the continents of the northern hemisphere, supported in later 

 times by the knowledge of the southward extension of Asfa in the Malay 

 Peninsula and adjacent island of Sumatra. The geography of Ptolemy 

 was in general use until the voyages of the Spaniards and the Portuguese 

 to the south gave a new form to the ancient conception of the southern 

 hemisphere. But even after their discoveries, the Ptolemaic conception 

 influenced the representation of the southern lands. 



"Aboutthe year 1531 a newdepartureismade by the map-makers, some 

 of whom nowshow the Terra Australis with a vast extension to the north- 

 ward in aposition roughly approximating to that of Australia as itis known 

 to us. This appears, for example, on a woodcut map of the year 1531, 

 by the French geographer, Oronce Fin<5, published in the Nova Orbis 

 of Grynajus (Parisiis, 1532.) 'The globe of Orontius Fine', of Dauphiny,' 

 writes Mr. Petherick, ' one of the best records of the geographical 

 knowledge of that date, shows the Indian and Pacific Oceans, almost as 

 one, with what might be intended for the north coast of Australia as 

 low as the tropic of Capricorn and about half-way between Africa and 

 South America.' Met. Rev. ix. 15S. These outlines have no resemb- 

 lance to the real Australia. The map has the legend ' Terra Australis 

 recenter invenla sed nondum plene cognila. ' There is also in a polyglot 

 bible by Areas Montanus. vol. Ill, of the date 1571, and printed at 

 Antwerp, a mappe-monde, showing a curved line indicating the north 

 part of an unexplored land exactly in the position of the north of Aus- 

 tralia, distinctly implying an imperfect discovery.' Major's Prince 

 Henry, p. 295. In other engraved maps of that century, the coast 

 line of the Terra Australis, beginning in Tierra del Fuego, trends 

 westward in. the same latitude until it reaches the longitude of 



