EARLIEST POSITIVE DISCOVERY OF AUSTRALIA
A.D. 1606
LOUIS BECKE AND WALTER JEFFERY
As shown by the authors of the following account, there is no lack of
evidence that it was belief in a great southern land which led early
geographers and sailors to belief in the existence of the Australian
continent. Notwithstanding this, it is held by some students of the
subject to be doubtful whether the first navigators who reached the
shores of Australia set out with any expectation of discovering a
great land in the south.
Whether this was the case or not, it is argued that the earliest
achievements in that quarter were either of no definite consequence
or were imperfectly estimated by those who made or promoted the
discoveries in connection with which not even their names have been
preserved.
The narrative of Becke and Jeffery, with its references to other
leading authorities, furnishes the completest and most recent
information on this subject available within the compass of a
reasonably brief survey.
Learned geographers have gone back to very remote times, even to the
Middle Ages, and, by the aid of old maps, have set up ingenious theories
showing that the Australian continent was then known to explorers.
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