Terra Australis

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Terra Australis is the large continent proposed on the bottom of this map of 1570.

Map showing penciled land labeled Terra Australis Incognita, where Antarctica is situated. At the bottom of the map are incomplete New Zealand and New Holland (Australia).

Terra Australis (Latin, "land of the south") was a theorized continent appearing on European maps from the 15th to the 18th century. The theorized continent was also called Terra Australis Incognita (with incognita stressed on the second syllable). Terra incognita, Latin for "unknown land", was also used in reference to "the unknown land of the South".

1 The myth
2 Dispelling the myth
3 See also
4 References
5 External links

[edit] The myth

The notion of Terra Australis was introduced by Aristotle. His ideas were later expanded by Ptolemy (1st century AD), who believed that the Indian Ocean was enclosed on the south by land, and that the lands of the Northern Hemisphere should be balanced by land in the south. During the Renaissance, Ptolemy was the main source of information for European cartographers as new land started to appear on their maps. Although voyages of discovery did sometimes reduce the area where the continent could be found, cartographers held to Aristotle's opinion. Scientists argued for its existence, with such arguments as that there should be a large landmass in the south as a counterweight to the known landmasses in the Northern Hemisphere. Usually the land was shown as a continent around the South Pole, but much larger than the actual Antarctica, spreading far north – in particular in the Pacific Ocean. New Zealand, first seen by a European (Abel Tasman) in 1642, was regarded by some as a part of the continent, as were Africa and Australia.

Terra Australis was depicted on the mid-16th-century Dieppe maps. There was much interest in Brazil and Terra Australis among Norman and Breton merchants at that time, and the colony of France Antarctique was established in Brazil in 1555. In 1566 and 1570, Francisque and André d'Albaigne presented Gaspard de Coligny, Admiral of France, with projects for establishing relations with the Austral lands. Although The Admiral gave favourable consideration to these initiatives, they came to nought when Coligny was killed in 1572 during the St. Bartholomew's Day massacre.^[1]

Juan Fernandez, sailing from Chile in 1576, claimed he had discovered the Southern Continent.^[2] In the 1760s, Alexander Dalrymple accepted this claim and prompted the British government in 1769 to order James Cook in HM Bark Endeavour to seek out the Southern Continent to the South and West of Tahiti.^[3]

Isaac and Jacob Le Maire established the Australische Compagnie (Australian Company) in 1615 to trade with Terra Australis, which they referred to as "Australia". ^[4]

[edit] Dispelling the myth

Over the centuries the idea of Terra Australis gradually lost its hold. In 1615, Jacob le Maire en Willem Schouten's rounding of Cape Horn proved its separation from South America, while in 1642 Abel Tasman's circumnavigation of New Holland proved that Australia was not part of the mythical southern continent. Much later, James Cook sailed around most of New Zealand in 1770, showing that even it could not be part of a large continent. On his second voyage he circumnavigated the globe at a very high southern latitude, at some places even crossing the south polar circle, showing that any possible southern continent must lie well within the cold polar areas. There could be no extension into regions with a temperate climate, as had been thought before.

In 1801, Matthew Flinders took command of an expedition to investigate the coastline of Australia, which he circled anti-clockwise, threading the Great Barrier Reef through what is now called Flinders Passage and surveying the Gulf of Carpentaria in the north. His charts of the coastline were remarkably accurate. After completing his work in 1803, he sailed for England. His ship was wrecked on an uncharted reef, however, and he returned to Australia in the ship's cutter, a remarkable 1,100 km (700 mile) journey.^[5]

Lands noted by Marco Polo in the 13th century had been subsumed under Terra Australis. Polo had proclaimed amazing riches in the kingdom of Lokak: "Gold is so plentiful that no one who did see it could believe it." Lokak was probably Thailand or Malaysia but the Europeans found very little gold in those lands and so the realm was pushed further south. In Ortelius's atlas Theatrum Orbis Terrarum, published in 1570, Terra Australis extends north of the Tropic of Capricorn in the Pacific Ocean.

[edit] See also

[edit] References

^ E.T. Hamy, "Francisque et André d'Albaigne: cosmographes lucquois au service de la France"; "Nouveau documents sur les frères d'Albaigne et sur le projet de voyage et de découvertes présenté à la cour de France"; and "Documents relatifs à un projet d’expéditions lointaines présentés à la cour de France en 1570", in Bulletin de Géographie Historique et Descriptive, Paris, 1894, pp. 405–433; 1899, pp. 101–110; and 1903, pp. 266–273.
^ José Toribio Medina, El Piloto Juan Fernandez, Santiago de Chile, 1918, reprinted by Gabriela Mistral, 1974, pp. 136, 246.
^ Andrew Cook, Introduction to An account of the discoveries made in the South Pacifick Ocean / by Alexander Dalrymple ; first printed in 1767, reissued with a foreword by Kevin Fewster and an essay by Andrew Cook, Potts Point (NSW), Hordern House Rare Books for the Australian National Maritime Museum, 1996, pp. 38–9.
^ Spieghel der Australische Navigatie; cited by A. Lodewyckx, "The Name of Australia: Its Origin and Early Use", The Victorian Historical Magazine, Vol. XIII, No. 3, June 1929, pp. 100–191.
^ "Flinder's Journeys". State Library of New South Wales. Retrieved on 2008-09-21.