EARLY DISCOVERIES. 7 



In 1606 Luis Vaez de Torres, a companion of Quiros, coasted the southeastern 

 part of New Guinea and discovered the strait separating that island from Australia 

 which still bears his name. At the same time the more distinguished Pedro Fernandez 

 de Quiros, who had been pilot with Mendafia, discovered the New Hebrides and other 

 islands, among them Sagittaria which Espinosa and others identify with Tahiti. Abel 

 Janszen Tasman sailed by order of the Governor Van Diemen from Batavia in August, 

 1642, to explore Australia, and in November discovered Tasmania (which he named 

 Van Diemen's Land), in December New Zealand, and in 1643 a part of the Tongan 

 Group. Other Dutch vessels from Batavia made various discoveries along the coast of 

 Australia, and in 1699 the English freebooter Captain William Dampier explored the 

 coast of Australia and New Guinea, leaving memorials of his voyaging in Dampier 

 Archipelago, Dampier Island and Dampier Strait. Jacob Lemaire and Jan Schouten 

 had in 161 5 discovered the Strait of Lemaire and Cape Horn (which Schouten named 

 in honor of his native town, Horn). March 1, 16 16, they sighted Juan Fernandez and 

 then crossed the ocean to the northern coast of New Guinea. 



The eighteenth century was destined to reveal more accurately the secrets of 

 the "Great Ocean". In 172 1 Jacob Roggewein was sent across the Pacific by the 

 Dutch East India Company and he discovered Rapanui or Easter Island. Lord 

 Anson's voyage ( 1740-1744) was of a war-like nature, but in capturing the Spanish 

 galleon he captured also the Spanish chart on which were "Las Mesas", a group 

 of islands which Cook searched for on his way north from Tahiti and found in the 

 designated latitude the group which he called Sandwich in honor of his patron, a 

 Lord of the Admiralty. Anson's voyage had a far greater effect than Drake's in turn- 

 ing the attention of the English to the Pacific, and in 1764 Commodore Byron, the grand- 

 father of the poet, crossed it on his voyage around the world, and on his return 'in 1766 

 a more formal exploring expedition was fitted out with Captain Wallis in the Dolphin 

 and Captain Philip Carteret in the Swallow. Wallis first determined longitudes in this 

 ocean by lunar distances and thus corrected the charts, which hitherto had but little im- 

 proved on the early Spanish in that measurement. He rediscovered Tahiti June 19, 

 1767, and discovered Sir Charles Saunders Island (Tapamanu) in the same group. His 

 colleague Carteret discovered Pitcairn's Island July 2, 1767, and a number of islands of 

 the Low Archipelago. About the same time the French sent Louis Antone de Bou- 

 gainville on his memorable voyage around the world. He passed the Strait of Magel- 

 lan and touched at Tahiti eight months after Wallis. He was a distinguished navi- 

 gator and mathematician, a Fellow of the Royal Society, and had the honor of first 

 carrying the French flag around the world, but his surveys and charts were sadly 

 inaccurate. 



All these advance scouts had prepared the way for a series of voyages unsur- 

 passed in the history of maritime discovery : voyages whose record translated into all 



[91] 



