(
Latin
Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...
: '"Southern Land'") was a hypothetical
continent
A continent is any of several large landmasses. Generally identified by convention rather than any strict criteria, up to seven geographical regions are commonly regarded as continents. Ordered from largest in area to smallest, these seven ...
first posited in
antiquity
Antiquity or Antiquities may refer to:
Historical objects or periods Artifacts
*Antiquities, objects or artifacts surviving from ancient cultures
Eras
Any period before the European Middle Ages (5th to 15th centuries) but still within the histo ...
and which appeared on maps between the 15th and 18th centuries. Its existence was not based on any survey or direct observation, but rather on the idea that continental land in the
Northern Hemisphere
The Northern Hemisphere is the half of Earth that is north of the Equator. For other planets in the Solar System, north is defined as being in the same celestial hemisphere relative to the invariable plane of the solar system as Earth's Nort ...
should be balanced by land in the
Southern Hemisphere.
[John Noble Wilford: The Mapmakers, the Story of the Great Pioneers in Cartography from Antiquity to Space Age, p. 139, Vintage Books, Random House 1982, ] This theory of balancing land has been documented as early as the 5th century on maps by
Macrobius
Macrobius Ambrosius Theodosius, usually referred to as Macrobius (fl. AD 400), was a Roman provincial who lived during the early fifth century, during late antiquity, the period of time corresponding to the Later Roman Empire, and when Latin was ...
, who uses the term ' on his maps.
Names
Other names for the hypothetical continent have included ''Terra Australis Ignota'', ''Terra Australis Incognit ("the unknown land of the south") or ''Terra Australis Nondum Cognita'' ("the southern land not yet known"). Other names were ''Brasiliae Australis'' ("the southern Brazil"), and ''Magellanica'' ("the land of
Magellan").
Matthias Ringmann
Matthias Ringmann (1482–1511), also known as Philesius Vogesigena was an Alsatian German humanist scholar and cosmographer. Along with cartographer Martin Waldseemüller, he is credited with the first documented usage of the word America, on ...
called it the ''Ora antarctica'' (antarctic land) in 1505, and
Franciscus Monachus
Franciscus Monachus, (c. 1490 – 1565) was born Frans Smunck in Mechelen (or Malines) in the Duchy of Brabant (in modern-day Belgium). His Latinised name, adopted when he matriculated at the University of Louvain, is translated as simply ''Franc ...
called it the ''Australis orę'' (Austral country). In Medieval times it was known as the
Antipodes
In geography, the antipode () of any spot on Earth is the point on Earth's surface diametrically opposite to it. A pair of points ''antipodal'' () to each other are situated such that a straight line connecting the two would pass through Ear ...
.
Change of name
During the eighteenth century, today's
Australia
Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...
was not conflated with Terra Australis, as it sometimes was in the twentieth century.
Captain Cook and his contemporaries knew that the sixth continent (today's Australia), which they called
''New Holland'', was entirely separate from the imagined (but still undiscovered) seventh continent (today's
Antarctica
Antarctica () is Earth's southernmost and least-populated continent. Situated almost entirely south of the Antarctic Circle and surrounded by the Southern Ocean, it contains the geographic South Pole. Antarctica is the fifth-largest contine ...
).
In the nineteenth century, the colonial authorities in
Sydney
Sydney ( ) is the capital city of the state of New South Wales, and the most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Located on Australia's east coast, the metropolis surrounds Sydney Harbour and extends about towards the Blue Mountain ...
re-allocated the name ''Australia'' to New Holland and its centuries-old Dutch name eventually disappeared. Meanwhile, having lost its name of ''Australia'', the south polar continent was nameless for decades until ''Antarctica'' was coined in the 1890s.
In the early 1800s,
British explorer Matthew Flinders
Captain Matthew Flinders (16 March 1774 – 19 July 1814) was a British navigator and cartographer who led the first inshore circumnavigation of mainland Australia, then called New Holland. He is also credited as being the first person to u ...
popularized the
naming of Australia after ''Terra Australis'', giving his rationale that there was "no probability" of finding any significant land mass anywhere more south than Australia.
[Matthew Flinders]
''A voyage to Terra Australis'' (Introduction)
The State Library of South Australia. Retrieved 13 June 2019. The continent that would come to be named
Antarctica
Antarctica () is Earth's southernmost and least-populated continent. Situated almost entirely south of the Antarctic Circle and surrounded by the Southern Ocean, it contains the geographic South Pole. Antarctica is the fifth-largest contine ...
would be explored decades after Flinders' 1814 book on Australia, which he had titled ''
A Voyage to Terra Australis
''A Voyage to Terra Australis: Undertaken for the Purpose of Completing the Discovery of that Vast Country, and Prosecuted in the Years 1801, 1802, and 1803, in His Majesty's Ship the Investigator'' was a sea voyage journal written by English mari ...
'', and after his naming switch had gained popularity.
Origins
Ptolemy
Claudius Ptolemy (; grc-gre, Πτολεμαῖος, ; la, Claudius Ptolemaeus; AD) was a mathematician, astronomer, astrologer, geographer, and music theorist, who wrote about a dozen scientific treatises, three of which were of importanc ...
(2nd century AD) believed that the
Indian Ocean
The Indian Ocean is the third-largest of the world's five oceanic divisions, covering or ~19.8% of the water on Earth's surface. It is bounded by Asia to the north, Africa to the west and Australia to the east. To the south it is bounded by th ...
was enclosed on the south by land, and that the lands of the
Northern Hemisphere
The Northern Hemisphere is the half of Earth that is north of the Equator. For other planets in the Solar System, north is defined as being in the same celestial hemisphere relative to the invariable plane of the solar system as Earth's Nort ...
should be balanced by land in the
south
South is one of the cardinal directions or Points of the compass, compass points. The direction is the opposite of north and is perpendicular to both east and west.
Etymology
The word ''south'' comes from Old English ''sūþ'', from earlier Pro ...
.
Marcus Tullius Cicero
Marcus Tullius Cicero ( ; ; 3 January 106 BC – 7 December 43 BC) was a Roman statesman, lawyer, scholar, philosopher, and academic skeptic, who tried to uphold optimate principles during the political crises that led to the estab ...
used the term ''cingulus australis'' ("southern zone") in referring to the Antipodes in ''
Somnium Scipionis'' ("Dream of Scipio"). The land (''terra'' in Latin) in this zone was the ''Terra Australis''.
![Gerard De Jode, Universi Orbis seu Terreni Globi, 1578](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a3/Gerard_De_Jode%2C_Universi_Orbis_seu_Terreni_Globi%2C_1578.png)
Legends of Terra Australis Incognitaan "unknown land of the South"date back to Roman times and before, and were commonplace in medieval geography, although not based on any documented knowledge of the continent. Ptolemy's maps, which became well known in Europe during the
Renaissance
The Renaissance ( , ) , from , with the same meanings. is a period in European history marking the transition from the Middle Ages to modernity and covering the 15th and 16th centuries, characterized by an effort to revive and surpass ideas ...
, did not actually depict such a continent, but they did show an Africa which had no southern oceanic boundary (and which therefore might extend all the way to the South Pole), and also raised the possibility that the
Indian Ocean
The Indian Ocean is the third-largest of the world's five oceanic divisions, covering or ~19.8% of the water on Earth's surface. It is bounded by Asia to the north, Africa to the west and Australia to the east. To the south it is bounded by th ...
was entirely enclosed by land. Christian thinkers did not discount the idea that there might be land beyond the southern seas, but the issue of
whether it could be inhabited was controversial.
The first depiction of Terra Australis on a globe was probably on
Johannes Schöner's lost 1523 globe on which
Oronce Fine is thought to have based his 1531 double cordiform (heart-shaped) map of the world. On this landmass he wrote "recently discovered but not yet completely explored". The body of water beyond the tip of South America is called the "Mare Magellanicum", one of the first uses of navigator Ferdinand Magellan's name in such a context.
[Orontius Fineus: Rare Book and Special Collections Division, Library of Congress, 1531, (147.03.00)]
Schöner called the continent ''Brasiliae Australis'' in his 1533 tract, ''Opusculum geographicum''. In it, he explained:
Brasilia Australis is an immense region toward Antarcticum, newly discovered but not yet fully surveyed, which extends as far as Melacha and somewhat beyond. The inhabitants of this region lead good, honest lives and are not Anthropophagi annibalslike other barbarian nations; they have no letters, nor do they have kings, but they venerate their elders and offer them obedience; they give the name Thomas to their children St Thomas the Apostle">Saint Thomas the Apostle">St Thomas the Apostle close to this region lies the great island of Zanzibar at 102.00 degrees and 27.30 degrees South.
Mapping the southern continent
Medieval period
During medieval times Terra Australis was known by a different name, that being the
Antipodes
In geography, the antipode () of any spot on Earth is the point on Earth's surface diametrically opposite to it. A pair of points ''antipodal'' () to each other are situated such that a straight line connecting the two would pass through Ear ...
. First widely introduced to medieval western Europe by
Isidore of Seville
Isidore of Seville ( la, Isidorus Hispalensis; c. 560 – 4 April 636) was a Spanish scholar, theologian, and archbishop of Seville. He is widely regarded, in the words of 19th-century historian Montalembert, as "the last scholar of ...
in his famous book the ''
Etymologiae'', the idea gained popularity over Europe, and most scholars did not question its existence, instead debating if it was habitable for other humans. It would later be included on some zonal
Mappa mundi
A ''mappa mundi'' (Latin ; plural = ''mappae mundi''; french: mappemonde; enm, mappemond) is any medieval European map of the world. Such maps range in size and complexity from simple schematic maps or less across to elaborate wall maps, the ...
and intrigue medieval scholars for centuries.
16th century
Explorers of the
Age of Discovery
The Age of Discovery (or the Age of Exploration), also known as the early modern period, was a period largely overlapping with the Age of Sail, approximately from the 15th century to the 17th century in European history, during which seafarin ...
, from the late 15th century on, proved that Africa was almost entirely surrounded by sea, and that the Indian Ocean was accessible from both west and east. These discoveries reduced the area where the continent could be found; however, many cartographers held to Aristotle's opinion. Scientists such as
Gerardus Mercator
Gerardus Mercator (; 5 March 1512 – 2 December 1594) was a 16th-century geographer, cosmographer and Cartography, cartographer from the County of Flanders. He is most renowned for creating the Mercator 1569 world map, 1569 world map based on ...
(1569) and
Alexander Dalrymple as late as 1767
argued for its existence, with such arguments as that there should be a large
landmass
A landmass, or land mass, is a large region or area of land. The term is often used to refer to lands surrounded by an ocean or sea, such as a continent or a large island. In the field of geology, a landmass is a defined section of continental ...
in the
south
South is one of the cardinal directions or Points of the compass, compass points. The direction is the opposite of north and is perpendicular to both east and west.
Etymology
The word ''south'' comes from Old English ''sūþ'', from earlier Pro ...
as a
counterweight
A counterweight is a weight that, by applying an opposite force, provides balance and stability of a mechanical system. The purpose of a counterweight is to make lifting the load faster and more efficient, which saves energy and causes less wear ...
to the known landmasses in the Northern Hemisphere. As new lands were discovered, they were often assumed to be parts of the hypothetical continent.
The German cosmographer and mathematician
Johannes Schöner (1477–1547) constructed a terrestrial globe in 1515, based on the world map and globe made by
Martin Waldseemüller and his colleagues at St. Dié in Lorraine in 1507. Where Schöner departs most conspicuously from Waldseemüller is in his globe's depiction of an Antarctic continent, called by him Brasilie Regio. His continent is based, however tenuously, on the report of an actual voyage: that of the Portuguese merchants Nuno Manuel and
Cristóvão de Haro to the
River Plate, and related in the ''Newe Zeytung auss Presillg Landt'' ("New Tidings from the Land of Brazil") published in Augsburg in 1514. The ''Zeytung'' described the Portuguese voyagers passing through a strait between the southernmost point of America, or Brazil, and a land to the south west, referred to as ''vndtere Presill'' (or ''Brasilia inferior'').
This supposed "strait" was in fact the Rio de la Plata (or the
San Matias Gulf). By "vndtere Presill", the Zeytung meant that part of Brazil in the lower latitudes, but Schöner mistook it to mean the land on the southern side of the "strait", in higher latitudes, and so gave to it the opposite meaning. On this slender foundation he constructed his circum-Antarctic continent to which, for the reasons that he does not explain, he gave an annular, or ring shape. In an accompanying explanatory treatise, ''Luculentissima quaedam terrae totius descriptio'' ("A Most Lucid Description of All Lands"), he explained:
The Portuguese, thus, sailed around this region, the Brasilie Regio, and discovered the passage very similar to that of our Europe (where we reside) and situated laterally between east and west. From one side the land on the other is visible; and the cape of this region about away, much as if one were sailing eastward through the Straits of Gibraltar or Seville and Barbary or Morocco in Africa, as our Globe shows toward the Antarctic Pole. Further, the distance is only moderate from this Region of Brazil to Malacca, where St. Thomas was crowned with martyrdom.
On this scrap of information, united with the concept of the Antipodes inherited from Graeco-Roman antiquity, Schöner constructed his representation of the southern continent. His strait served as inspiration for
Ferdinand Magellan's expedition to reach the Moluccas by a westward route.
He took Magellan's discovery of Tierra del Fuego in 1520 as further confirmation of its existence, and on his globes of 1523 and 1533 he described it as ''terra australis recenter inventa sed nondum plene cognita'' ("Terra Australis, recently discovered but not yet fully known"). It was taken up by his followers, the French cosmographer
Oronce Fine in his world map of 1531, and the Flemish cartographers
Gerardus Mercator
Gerardus Mercator (; 5 March 1512 – 2 December 1594) was a 16th-century geographer, cosmographer and Cartography, cartographer from the County of Flanders. He is most renowned for creating the Mercator 1569 world map, 1569 world map based on ...
in 1538 and
Abraham Ortelius
Abraham Ortelius (; also Ortels, Orthellius, Wortels; 4 or 14 April 152728 June 1598) was a Brabantian cartographer, geographer, and cosmographer, conventionally recognized as the creator of the first modern atlas, the ''Theatrum Orbis Terraru ...
in 1570. Schöner's concepts influenced the
Dieppe school of mapmakers, notably in their representation of
Jave la Grande
La grande isle de Java ("the great island of Java") was, according to Marco Polo, the largest island in the world; his Java Minor was the actual island of Sumatra, which takes its name from the city of Samudera (now Lhokseumawe) situated on its n ...
.
In
1539
__NOTOC__
Year 1539 ( MDXXXIX) was a common year starting on Wednesday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar.
Events
January–June
* January – Toungoo–Hanthawaddy War – Battle of Naungyo, Burma: ...
, the
King of Spain
, coatofarms = File:Coat_of_Arms_of_Spanish_Monarch.svg
, coatofarms_article = Coat of arms of the King of Spain
, image = Felipe_VI_in_2020_(cropped).jpg
, incumbent = Felipe VI
, incumbentsince = 19 Ju ...
,
Charles V, created the
Governorate of Terra Australis
The Governorate of Terra Australis or Governorate of Pedro Sancho de la Hoz was a Spanish Governorate of the Crown of Castile created in 1539 which was granted to Pedro Sancho de la Hoz and consisted in all the territories to the south of the ...
granted to
Pedro Sancho de la Hoz
Pedro is a masculine given name. Pedro is the Spanish, Portuguese, and Galician name for ''Peter''. Its French equivalent is Pierre while its English and Germanic form is Peter.
The counterpart patronymic surname of the name Pedro, meaning ...
, who in 1540 transferred the title to the conqueror
Pedro de Valdivia
Pedro Gutiérrez de Valdivia or Valdiva (; April 17, 1497 – December 25, 1553) was a Spanish conquistador and the first royal governor of Chile. After serving with the Spanish army in Italy and Flanders, he was sent to South America in 1534, whe ...
and later was incorporated to
Chile
Chile, officially the Republic of Chile, is a country in the western part of South America. It is the southernmost country in the world, and the closest to Antarctica, occupying a long and narrow strip of land between the Andes to the east a ...
.
![Le Testu 1556 4th projection](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/29/Le_Testu_1556_4th_projection.jpg)
''Terra Australis'' was depicted on the mid-16th-century
Dieppe maps, where its coastline appeared just south of the islands of the East Indies; it was often elaborately charted, with a wealth of fictitious detail. There was much interest in Terra Australis among
Norman
Norman or Normans may refer to:
Ethnic and cultural identity
* The Normans, a people partly descended from Norse Vikings who settled in the territory of Normandy in France in the 10th and 11th centuries
** People or things connected with the Norm ...
and
Breton
Breton most often refers to:
*anything associated with Brittany, and generally
** Breton people
** Breton language, a Southwestern Brittonic Celtic language of the Indo-European language family, spoken in Brittany
** Breton (horse), a breed
**Ga ...
merchants at that time. In 1566 and 1570, Francisque and
André d'Albaigne Francisque and André d’Albaigne were 16th-century Italian merchants from the city of Lucca. Their name was Dalbagnio, according to a notary act of 1567 involving their brother Pellegrino (resident at La Rochelle, France since his marriage to the ...
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.
Gerardus Mercator believed in the existence of a large Southern continent on the basis of cosmographic reasoning, set out in the abstract of his ''Atlas or Cosmographic Studies in Five Books,'' as related by his biographer, Walter Ghim, who said that even though Mercator was not ignorant that the Austral continent still lay hidden and unknown, he believed it could be "demonstrated and proved by solid reasons and arguments to yield in its geometric proportions, size and weight, and importance to neither of the other two, nor possibly to be lesser or smaller, otherwise the constitution of the world could not hold together at its centre".
The Flemish geographer and cartographer,
Cornelius Wytfliet
Cornelius Wytfliet or Cornelis van Wytfliet (died around 1597) was a geographer from Leuven in the Habsburg Netherlands, best known for producing the first atlas of the Americas.
Life
Cornelius was the son of Catherine Huybrechts and her husban ...
, wrote concerning the ''Terra Australis'' in his 1597 book, ''Descriptionis Ptolemaicae Augmentum'':
The terra Australis is therefore the southernmost of all other lands, directly beneath the antarctic circle; extending beyond the tropic of Capricorn to the West, it ends almost at the equator itself, and separated by a narrow strait lies on the East opposite to New Guinea, only known so far by a few shores because after one voyage and another that route has been given up and unless sailors are forced and driven by stress of winds it is seldom visited. The terra Australis begins at two or three degrees below the equator and it is said by some to be of such magnitude that if at any time it is fully discovered they think it will be the fifth part of the world.
Adjoining Guinea on the right are the numerous and vast Solomon Islands which lately became famous by the voyage of Alvarus Mendanius.
Juan Fernandez, sailing from Chile in 1576, claimed he had discovered the Southern Continent. The ''Polus Antarcticus'' map of 1641 by
Henricus Hondius, bears the inscription: ''"Insulas esse a Nova Guinea usque ad Fretum Magellanicum affirmat Hernandus Galego, qui ad eas explorandas missus fuit a Rege Hispaniae Anno 1576'' (Hernando Gallego, who in the year 1576 was sent by the King of Spain to explore them, affirms that there are islands from New Guinea up to the Strait of Magellan)".
17th century
Luís Vaz de Torres
Luís Vaz de Torres ( Galician and Portuguese), or Luis Váez de Torres in the Spanish spelling (born c. 1565; fl. 1607), was a 16th- and 17th-century maritime explorer of a Spanish expedition noted for the first recorded European navigation of ...
, a
Spanish navigator who commanded the ''San Pedro y San Pablo'', the ''San Pedrico'' and the tender or yacht, ''Los Tres Reyes Magos'' during the 1605–1606 expedition led by
Pedro Fernandes de Queiros
Pedro is a masculine given name. Pedro is the Spanish, Portuguese, and Galician name for ''Peter''. Its French equivalent is Pierre while its English and Germanic form is Peter.
The counterpart patronymic surname of the name Pedro, meaning " ...
in quest of the Southern Continent, proved the existence of a passage south of New Guinea, now known as
Torres Strait
The Torres Strait (), also known as Zenadh Kes, is a strait between Australia and the Melanesian island of New Guinea. It is wide at its narrowest extent. To the south is Cape York Peninsula, the northernmost extremity of the Australian mai ...
. Commenting on this in 1622, the Dutch cartographer and publisher of Queiros' eighth memorial,
Hessel Gerritsz, noted on his ''Map of the Pacific Ocean:'' "Those who sailed with the yacht of Pedro Fernando de Quiros in the neighbourhood of New Guinea to 10 degrees westward through many islands and shoals and over for as many as 40 days, estimated that Nova Guinea does not extend beyond 10 degrees to the south; if this be so, then the land from 9 to 14 degrees would be a separate land".
Pedro Fernandes de Queirós, another Portuguese navigator sailing for the Spanish Crown, saw a large island south of New Guinea in 1606, which he named La Austrialia del Espiritu Santo. He represented this to the King of
Spain
, image_flag = Bandera de España.svg
, image_coat = Escudo de España (mazonado).svg
, national_motto = ''Plus ultra'' (Latin)(English: "Further Beyond")
, national_anthem = (English: "Royal March")
, i ...
as the Terra Australis incognita. In his 10th Memorial (1610), Queirós said: "New Guinea is the top end of the Austral Land of which I treat
iscuss and that people, and customs, with all the rest referred to, resemble them".
Dutch father and son Isaac and
Jacob Le Maire established the Australische Compagnie (Australian Company) in 1615 to trade with Terra Australis, which they called "Australia".
The
Dutch expedition to Valdivia
The Dutch expedition to Valdivia was a naval expedition, commanded by Hendrik Brouwer, sent by the Dutch Republic in 1643 to establish a base of operations and a trading post on the southern coast of Chile. With Spain and the Dutch Republic ...
of 1643 intended to round Cape Horn sailing through Le Maire Strait but strong winds made it instead drift south and east.
The small fleet led by
Hendrik Brouwer
Hendrik Brouwer (; 1581 – 7 August 1643) was a Dutch explorer and governor of the Dutch East Indies.
East Indies
Brouwer is thought to first have sailed to the Dutch East Indies for the Dutch East India Company (VOC) in 1606. In 1610, ...
managed to enter the Pacific ocean sailing south of the island disproving earlier beliefs that it was part of Terra Australis.
The cartographic depictions of the southern continent in the 16th and early 17th centuries, as might be expected for a concept based on such abundant conjecture and minimal data, varied wildly from map to map; in general, the continent shrank as potential locations were reinterpreted. At its largest, the continent included Tierra del Fuego
Tierra del Fuego (, ; Spanish for "Land of the Fire", rarely also Fireland in English) is an archipelago off the southernmost tip of the South American mainland, across the Strait of Magellan. The archipelago consists of the main island, Isla G ...
, separated from South America by a small strait; New Guinea
New Guinea (; Hiri Motu
Hiri Motu, also known as Police Motu, Pidgin Motu, or just Hiri, is a language of Papua New Guinea, which is spoken in surrounding areas of Port Moresby (Capital of Papua New Guinea).
It is a simplified version of ...
; and what would come to be called Australia
Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...
. In Ortelius's atlas ''Theatrum Orbis Terrarum'', published in 1570, Terra Australis extends north of the Tropic of Capricorn in the Pacific Ocean.
As long as it appeared on maps at all, the continent minimally included the unexplored lands around the South Pole
The South Pole, also known as the Geographic South Pole, Terrestrial South Pole or 90th Parallel South, is one of the two points where Earth's axis of rotation intersects its surface. It is the southernmost point on Earth and lies antipod ...
, but generally much larger than the real Antarctica
Antarctica () is Earth's southernmost and least-populated continent. Situated almost entirely south of the Antarctic Circle and surrounded by the Southern Ocean, it contains the geographic South Pole. Antarctica is the fifth-largest contine ...
, spreading far north – especially in the Pacific Ocean
The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean (or, depending on definition, to Antarctica) in the south, and is bounded by the continen ...
. New Zealand
New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest island count ...
, first seen by the Dutch explorer Abel Tasman in 1642, was regarded by some as a part of the continent.
18th century
Alexander Dalrymple, the Examiner of Sea Journals for the English East India Company
The East India Company (EIC) was an English, and later British, joint-stock company founded in 1600 and dissolved in 1874. It was formed to trade in the Indian Ocean region, initially with the East Indies (the Indian subcontinent and Southea ...
, whilst translating some Spanish documents captured in the Philippines in 1762, found de Torres's testimony. This discovery led Dalrymple to publish the ''Historical Collection of the Several Voyages and Discoveries in the South Pacific Ocean'' in 1770–1771. Dalrymple presented a beguiling tableau of the Terra Australis, or Southern Continent:
The number of inhabitants in the Southern Continent is probably more than 50 millions, considering the extent, from the eastern part discovered by Juan Fernandez, to the western coast seen by Tasman, is about 100 deg. of longitude, which in the latitude of 40 deg. amounts to 4596 geographic, or 5323 stature miles 567 km This is a greater extent than the whole civilized part of Asia, from Turkey to the eastern extremity of China. There is at present no trade from Europe thither, though the scraps from this table would be sufficient to maintain the power, dominion, and sovereignty of Britain, by employing all its manufacturers and ships. Whoever considers the Peruvian empire, where arts and industry flourished under one of the wisest systems of government, which was founded by a stranger, must have very sanguine expectations of the southern continent, from whence it is more than probable Mango Capac, the first Inca, was derived, and must be convinced that the country, from whence Mango Capac introduced the comforts of civilized life, cannot fail of amply rewarding the fortunate people who shall bestow letters instead of quippos (quipus
''Quipu'' (also spelled ''khipu'') are recording devices fashioned from strings historically used by a number of cultures in the region of Andean South America.
A ''quipu'' usually consisted of cotton or camelid fiber strings. The Inca people u ...
), and iron in place of more awkward substitutes.
Dalrymple's claim of the existence of an unknown continent aroused widespread interest and prompted the British government in 1769 to order James Cook
James Cook (7 November 1728 Old Style date: 27 October – 14 February 1779) was a British explorer, navigator, cartographer, and captain in the British Royal Navy, famous for his three voyages between 1768 and 1779 in the Pacific Ocean an ...
in HM Bark ''Endeavour'' to seek out the Southern Continent to the South and West of Tahiti
Tahiti (; Tahitian ; ; previously also known as Otaheite) is the largest island of the Windward group of the Society Islands in French Polynesia. It is located in the central part of the Pacific Ocean and the nearest major landmass is Austr ...
, discovered in June 1767 by Samuel Wallis in and named by him King George Island. The London press reported in June 1768 that two ships would be sent to the newly discovered island and from there to "attempt the Discovery of the Southern Continent". A subsequent press report stated: "We are informed, that the Island which Captain Wallis has discovered in the South-Sea, and named George's Land, is about fifteen hundred Leagues to the Westward and to Leeward of the Coast of Peru, and about five-and-thirty Leagues in circumference; that its principal and almost sole national Advantage is, its Situation for exploring the Terra Incognita of the Southern Hemisphere. The Endeavour, a North-Country Cat, is purchased by the Government, and commanded by a Lieutenant of the Navy; she is fitting out at Deptford for the South-Sea, thought to be intended for the newly-discovered Island". The aims of the expedition were revealed in days following: "To-morrow morning Mr. Banks, Dr. Solano ic with Mr. Green, the Astronomer, will set out for Deal, to embark on board the Endeavour, Capt. Cook, for the South Seas, under the direction of the Royal Society, to observe the Transit of Venus next summer, and to make discoveries to the South and West of Cape Horn". The London ''Gazetteer'' was more explicit when it reported on 18 August 1768: "The gentlemen, who are to sail in a few days for George's Land, the new discovered island in the Pacific ocean, with an intention to observe the Transit of Venus, are likewise, we are credibly informed, to attempt some new discoveries in that vast unknown tract, above the latitude 40". The results of this first voyage of James Cook in respect of the quest for the Southern Continent were summed up by Cook himself. He wrote in his ''Journal'' on 31 March 1770 that the ''Endeavour'' voyage "must be allowed to have set aside the most, if not all, the Arguments and proofs that have been advanced by different Authors to prove that there must be a Southern Continent; I mean to the Northward of 40 degrees South, for what may lie to the Southward of that Latitude I know not".
The second voyage of James Cook aboard explored the South Pacific for the landmass between 1772 and 1775 whilst also testing Larcum Kendall's K1 chronometer as a method for measuring longitude.
Decline of the idea
Over the centuries the idea of Terra Australis gradually lost its hold. In 1616, Jacob Le Maire and Willem Schouten
Willem Cornelisz Schouten ( – 1625) was a Dutch navigator for the Dutch East India Company. He was the first to sail the Cape Horn route to the Pacific Ocean.
Biography
Willem Cornelisz Schouten was born in c. 1567 in Hoorn, Holland, Seven ...
's rounding of Cape Horn
Cape Horn ( es, Cabo de Hornos, ) is the southernmost headland of the Tierra del Fuego archipelago of southern Chile, and is located on the small Hornos Island. Although not the most southerly point of South America (which are the Diego Ramírez ...
proved that Tierra del Fuego
Tierra del Fuego (, ; Spanish for "Land of the Fire", rarely also Fireland in English) is an archipelago off the southernmost tip of the South American mainland, across the Strait of Magellan. The archipelago consists of the main island, Isla G ...
was a relatively small island, while in 1642 Abel Tasman's first Pacific voyage proved that Australia was not part of the mythical southern continent. Much later, James Cook
James Cook (7 November 1728 Old Style date: 27 October – 14 February 1779) was a British explorer, navigator, cartographer, and captain in the British Royal Navy, famous for his three voyages between 1768 and 1779 in the Pacific Ocean an ...
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
Circumnavigation is the complete navigation around an entire island, continent, or astronomical body (e.g. a planet or moon). This article focuses on the circumnavigation of Earth.
The first recorded circumnavigation of the Earth was the Magel ...
the globe at a very high southern latitude
In geography, latitude is a coordinate that specifies the north– south position of a point on the surface of the Earth or another celestial body. Latitude is given as an angle that ranges from –90° at the south pole to 90° at the north pol ...
, at some places even crossing the Antarctic Circle
The Antarctic Circle is the most southerly of the five major circles of latitude that mark maps of Earth. The region south of this circle is known as the Antarctic, and the zone immediately to the north is called the Southern Temperate Zone. S ...
, 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
In geography, the temperate climates of Earth occur in the middle latitudes (23.5° to 66.5° N/S of Equator), which span between the tropics and the polar regions of Earth. These zones generally have wider temperature ranges throughout t ...
, as had been thought before. In 1814, Matthew Flinders
Captain Matthew Flinders (16 March 1774 – 19 July 1814) was a British navigator and cartographer who led the first inshore circumnavigation of mainland Australia, then called New Holland. He is also credited as being the first person to u ...
published the book ''A Voyage to Terra Australis
''A Voyage to Terra Australis: Undertaken for the Purpose of Completing the Discovery of that Vast Country, and Prosecuted in the Years 1801, 1802, and 1803, in His Majesty's Ship the Investigator'' was a sea voyage journal written by English mari ...
.'' Flinders had concluded that the Terra Australis as hypothesized by Aristotle
Aristotle (; grc-gre, Ἀριστοτέλης ''Aristotélēs'', ; 384–322 BC) was a Greek philosopher and polymath during the Classical period in Ancient Greece. Taught by Plato, he was the founder of the Peripatetic school of phil ...
and Ptolemy
Claudius Ptolemy (; grc-gre, Πτολεμαῖος, ; la, Claudius Ptolemaeus; AD) was a mathematician, astronomer, astrologer, geographer, and music theorist, who wrote about a dozen scientific treatises, three of which were of importanc ...
did not exist, so he wanted the name applied to what he saw as the next best thing: "Australia
Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...
", replacing the former name for the continent, New Holland. He wrote:
There is no probability, that any other detached body of land, of nearly equal extent, will ever be found in a more southern latitude; the name Terra Australis will, therefore, remain descriptive of the geographical importance of this country, and of its situation on the globe: it has antiquity to recommend it; and, having no reference to either of the two claiming nations,[ appears to be less objectionable than any other which could have been selected.]
...with the accompanying note at the bottom of the page:
Had I permitted myself any innovation upon the original term, it would have been to convert it into AUSTRALIA; as being more agreeable to the ear, and an assimilation to the names of the other great portions of the earth.
With the discovery of Antarctica his conclusion would soon be revealed as a mistake, but by that time the name had stuck.
The Province of Beach
A land feature known as the "Province of Beach" or "Boeach" – from the Latin ''Provincia boëach'' – appears to have resulted from mistranscriptions of a name in Marco Polo's ''Il Milione
''Book of the Marvels of the World'' (Italian: , lit. 'The Million', deriving from Polo's nickname "Emilione"), in English commonly called ''The Travels of Marco Polo'', is a 13th-century travelogue written down by Rustichello da Pisa from st ...
'' (Book III). Polo described his journey by sea from China to India by way of Champa
Champa (Cham: ꨌꩌꨛꨩ; km, ចាម្ប៉ា; vi, Chiêm Thành or ) were a collection of independent Cham polities that extended across the coast of what is contemporary central and southern Vietnam from approximately the 2nd cen ...
(''provincia ciamba''; modern southern Vietnam), ''Java Major
La grande isle de Java ("the great island of Java") was, according to Marco Polo, the largest island in the world; his Java Minor was the actual island of Sumatra, which takes its name from the city of Samudera (now Lhokseumawe) situated on its ...
'', ''Locach'' (modern Lop Buri
Lopburi ( th, ลพบุรี, , ) is the capital city of Lopburi Province in Thailand. It is about northeast of Bangkok. It has a population of 58,000. The town (''thesaban mueang'') covers the whole ''tambon'' Tha Hin and parts of Th ...
), and Sumatra
Sumatra is one of the Sunda Islands of western Indonesia. It is the largest island that is fully within Indonesian territory, as well as the sixth-largest island in the world at 473,481 km2 (182,812 mi.2), not including adjacent i ...
(''Java Minor''). In Cantonese
Cantonese ( zh, t=廣東話, s=广东话, first=t, cy=Gwóngdūng wá) is a language within the Chinese (Sinitic) branch of the Sino-Tibetan languages originating from the city of Guangzhou (historically known as Canton) and its surrounding are ...
, Lavo (an early name of Lop Buri) was pronounced "Lo-huk" 羅斛 and ''Locach'' was Marco Polo's transcription of this name. According to Polo, Locach was a kingdom where gold was "so plentiful that no one who did not see it could believe it". Polo's narrative describes the route southward from Champa toward Sumatra
Sumatra is one of the Sunda Islands of western Indonesia. It is the largest island that is fully within Indonesian territory, as well as the sixth-largest island in the world at 473,481 km2 (182,812 mi.2), not including adjacent i ...
, but by a slip of the pen the name "Java" (which Polo did not himself visit) was substituted for "Champa" as the point of departure, thereby mis-locating Sumatra and Locach south of Java (rather than Champa). Consequently, some geographers believed that Sumatra and Locach were near, or extensions of, ''Terra Australis''.
In the German cursive script, ''Locach'' and ''Boeach'' look similar. A feature known as the "Province of Beach" or "Boeach" – from the Latin ''Provincia boëach'' – appears on European maps as early as the 15th century. On a map of the world published in Florence in 1489 by Henricus Martellus, the Latin name ''provincia boëach'' is given to a southern neighbour of Champa. In a 1532 edition of Marco Polo's ''Travels'', Locach was changed to ''Boëach'', later shortened to ''Beach''.
By the mid-16th century, according to Henry Yule, the editor of a modern (1921) edition of Polo's ''Travels'', some geographers and cartographers followed the error in older editions of Polo that "placed ... the land of "Boeach" (or Locac)" south-east of Java and "introduced in their maps a continent in that situation". Gerard Mercator did just that on his 1541 globe, placing ''Beach provincia aurifera'' ("Beach the gold-bearing province") in the northernmost part of the ''Terra Australis'' in accordance with the faulty text of Marco Polo's ''Travels''. The landmass of Beach remained in this location on Mercator's world map of 1569, with the amplified description, quoting Marco Polo, ''Beach provincia aurifera quam pauci ex alienis regionibus adeunt propter gentis inhumanitatem'' ("Beach the gold-bearing province, wither few go from other countries because of the inhumanity of its people") with ''Lucach regnum'' shown somewhat to its south west. Following Mercator, Abraham Ortelius
Abraham Ortelius (; also Ortels, Orthellius, Wortels; 4 or 14 April 152728 June 1598) was a Brabantian cartographer, geographer, and cosmographer, conventionally recognized as the creator of the first modern atlas, the ''Theatrum Orbis Terraru ...
also showed ''BEACH'' and ''LVCACH'' in these locations on his world map of 1571.
The 1596 map by Jan Huygen van Linschoten
Jan Huygen van Linschoten (1563 – 8 February 1611) was a Dutch merchant, trader and historian.
He travelled extensively along the East Indies regions under Portuguese influence and served as the archbishop's secretary in Goa between 1583 ...
showed ''BEACH'' and ''LOCACH'', projecting from the map's southern edge as the northernmost parts of the ''Terra Australis'' long hypothesized by Europeans. An encounter by the Dutch vessel ''Eendracht'', commanded by Dirk Hartog, with Shark Bay, Western Australia in 1616, appeared to confirm that land existed where the maps showed ''Beach''; Hartog named the wider landmass '' Eendrachtsland'', after his ship. In August 1642, the Council of the Dutch East India Company
The United East India Company ( nl, Verenigde Oostindische Compagnie, the VOC) was a chartered company established on the 20th March 1602 by the States General of the Netherlands amalgamating existing companies into the first joint-stock ...
– evidently still relying on Linschoten's map – despatched Abel Tasman and Franchoijs Jacobszoon Visscher on a voyage of exploration, of which one of the objects was to obtain knowledge of "all the totally unknown provinces of Beach".[J.E. Heeres, "Abel Janszoon Tasman, His Life and Labours", ''Abel Tasman's Journal,'' Los Angeles, 1965, pp. 137, 141–2; cited in Andrew Sharp, ''The Voyages of Abel Janszoon Tasman,'' Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1968, pp.24-25.]
In fiction
The unexplored southern continent was a frequent subject of fantastic fiction in the 17th and 18th centuries in the imaginary voyages
''Imaginary Voyage'' is a studio album by French jazz fusion artist Jean-Luc Ponty. It features guitarist Daryl Stuermer and bassist Tom Fowler (both of whom had played on Ponty’s previous album), along with keyboardist Allan Zavod and drumm ...
genre. Among the works which dealt with imaginary visits to the continent (which at the time was still believed to be real) were:
* ' (1605), a satirical work by Joseph Hall, Bishop of Norwich;
* '' The Isle of Pines'' (1668) by the English politician Henry Neville Henry Neville or Nevile may refer to:
*Henry Neville (died c.1415), MP for leicestershire (UK Parliament constituency), leicestershire
*Henry Neville, 5th Earl of Westmorland (1525–1564), English peer
*Henry Neville (Gentleman of the Privy Chamb ...
;
* ' (1676) by Gabriel de Foigny Gabriel de Foigny (ca. 1630-1692) is the author of an important utopia, ''La Terre Australe connue'', 1676.
Life
All we know about Foigny, including his identity (the book was printed without his name), is based exclusively on the second edition of ...
;
* ' (1675) by the French Huguenot
The Huguenots ( , also , ) were a religious group of French Protestants who held to the Reformed, or Calvinist, tradition of Protestantism. The term, which may be derived from the name of a Swiss political leader, the Genevan burgomaster Be ...
writer Denis Vairasse d'Allais.
* ' (, incorrectly dated 1710) by Simon Tyssot de Patot
Simon Tyssot de Patot (1655–1738) was a French writer and poet during the Age of Enlightenment who penned two very important, seminal works in fantastic literature. Tyssot was born in London of French Huguenot parents. He was brought up in Roua ...
;
* '': The Fortunate Shipwreck, or a description of New Athens in Terra Australis incognita'' (1720) by the English dramatist Thomas Killigrew;
* ''Relation d'un voyage du Pole Arctique, au Pole Antarctique par le centre du monde'' (1721), anonymous;
* ''Relation du royaume des Féliciens'' (1727) by the Marquis de Lassay;
* ''Viaggi di Enrico Wanton alle Terre incognite Australi'' (1749) by Zaccaria Seriman;
* ''Voyage de Robertson, aux Terres Australes, traduit sur le manuscrit anglois'' (1767), anonymous;
* ''La découverte australe par un homme-volant'' (1781) by Restif de la Bretonne
Nicolas Restif de la Bretonne, born Nicolas-Edme Rétif or Nicolas-Edme Restif (; 23 October 1734 – 3 February 1806), also known as Rétif, was a French novelist. The term '' retifism'' for shoe fetishism was named after him (an early nov ...
;
* The idea of ''Terra Australis'' was also used by Terry Pratchett in his Discworld series of novels (1983–2014) where the World is balanced by the strange and little-known Counterweight Continent
The Discworld is the fictional setting for all of Terry Pratchett's ''Discworld'' fantasy novels. It consists of a large disc (complete with edge-of-the-world drop-off and consequent waterfall) resting on the backs of four huge elephants which ar ...
.
See also
* Early world maps
The earliest known world maps date to classical antiquity, the oldest examples of the 6th to 5th centuries BCE still based on the flat Earth paradigm.
World maps assuming a spherical Earth first appear in the Hellenistic period.
The developments ...
* Governorate of Terra Australis
The Governorate of Terra Australis or Governorate of Pedro Sancho de la Hoz was a Spanish Governorate of the Crown of Castile created in 1539 which was granted to Pedro Sancho de la Hoz and consisted in all the territories to the south of the ...
* History of Antarctica
* Spanish colonization attempt of the Strait of Magellan
Notes
References
Further reading
*
*
* L. Ivanov and N. Ivanova. Terra Australis. In
''The World of Antarctica''.
Generis Publishing, 2022. pp. 65-68.
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European exploration of Australia
History of Australia (1788–1850)
History of Antarctica
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