HISTORY OF DISCOVERY. 2.5 



But though it had thus vanished from the south- 

 western Atlantic, from the Indian, and the western Pacific, 

 or at least had been proved non-existent as far south 

 as the fiftieth degree of latitude, the imagination of geo- 

 graphers still clung to the higher southern latitudes and to 

 the possibilities of the vast region of the south-eastern 

 Pacific, south of New Zealand, which was itself regarded 

 as a portion of the great southern continent. Tasman's 

 circumnavigation of New Holland (as Australia was first 

 called), though at a great distance from land, had proved 

 that this also was certainly not joined to the Terra australis 

 of the maps and globes. In one respect important practical 

 and theoretical results followed from the clear apprehension 

 that South America was free, so to speak, at its southern 

 extremity. This was the increase and spread of geo- 

 graphical knowledge in connection with the waters to 

 the east and west of Tierra del Fueofo and Pataeonia. 

 Up to this time vessels outward bound to the Pacific had 

 been compelled to encounter the Falkland current sweep- 

 ing north as they neared the Patagonian coast. When 

 at last the dangerous passage through the Straits of 

 Magellan lay before them, half the ships, as we are told 

 by Peschel, turned back, and now there was the possi- 

 bility of sailing round at a greater distance from the 

 rocky shore of South America. Jacob l'Hermite as 

 early as 1624, when commander of the so-called Nassau 

 fleet, made the correct observation that on the voyage 

 out from Europe the difficulty of rounding Cape Hoorn 

 could be considerably diminished by going into a higher 

 southern latitude. Farther south, east and south-east 

 winds prevail, while in the neighbourhood of the Cape, 

 west and north-west winds blow constantly and with great 

 violence. L'Hermite himself had reached a latitude of 

 6i° S., and could therefore speak from experience. 



The immediate consequence of the greater facility in 

 reaching the South Sea — as the Pacific was still almost 



