Discovery Of Australia Research Articles

The Discovery of Australia

The Discovery of Australia

The First Description of a Kangaroo

I HAVE just read in NATURE of February 26 (p, 715) a letter by Mr. W. B. Alexander concerning the discovery of Australia and the first description of a kangaroo. It is stated there that the, first discovery of this animal was made, not by Sir Joseph Banks on Captain Cook's first voyage in 1770, but by Pelsart in 1629. Mav I be allowed to point out that a description of a kangaroo is to be found at a much earlier date, viz., in the “Decades” of Peter Martyr, published shortly after 1500. Unfortunately this book is not accessible to me at present, so I must only point to numerous publications of Mr. Edward A. Petherick, of the Federal. Government Library, Melbourne, concerning the discovery of Australia, who claims this honour for Amerigo Vespucci. According to Mr. Petherick, Peter Martyr states that in 1499 a southern coast was discovered: (probably by Vespucci) in which trees grew of such magnitude that sixteen men standing around one could scarcely encompass it (this would correspond to south-west, Australia, between King George's Sound and Cape Leeu-win). Amongst these big trees was found a monstrous beast, with the head of a fox, the, hands of a man, the tail of a monkey, and that wonderful provision of nature, a bag in which to carry its young. The beast so described was caught alive with its young, but during the long voyage both died. The carcase of the dam was taken to the Court of Ferdinand and Isabella in the year 1500. This description is not as detailed as that by Pelsart; nevertheless it cannot easily be doubted that it refers to a kangaroo, which seems to have been known for the first time so far back as the end of the fifteenth century.

The Discovery of Australia

IN a note in NATURE of November 27, 1913 (p. 379) relative to the Houtman's Abrolhos Islands, the remark is made:—“The wreck of the Dutch East India Co.'s ship, the Batavia, under the command of Capt. Pelsart, in 1629, is said to have led to the first recorded discovery of Australia.”

Discovery of Australia

Discovery of Australia

The Discovery of Australia

The Discovery of Australia

The Discovery of Australia. A Critical, Documentary and Historic Investigation concerning the Priority of Discovery in Australasia by Europeans before the Arrival of Lieut. James Cook, in the "Endeavour," in the Year 1770

The Discovery of Australia. A Critical, Documentary and Historic Investigation concerning the Priority of Discovery in Australasia by Europeans before the Arrival of Lieut. James Cook, in the "Endeavour," in the Year 1770

On the Discovery of Leucite in Australia

The mineral Leucite has for so long a period been considered as one of the most remarkable examples of limited distribution both in space and time, that the discovery in Australia of a rock largely composed of this mineral, by Mr. T. W. Edgeworth David, F.G.S., of the Geological Survey of New South Wales, is one that appears deserving of being at once placed upon record.Leucite-crystals, under the head of "white garnet," or "white schorls," appear to have been known from a very early period ; and, indeed, the fine examples from Somma could scarcely fail to attract the attention of the older mineralogists. Subsequently it was found that the mineral occurs in other parts of Italy, and especially the neighbourhood of Rome, as well as at the Laacher See and the Kaiserstuhl.

Verification of Recent Haematozoal Discoveries in Australia and Egypt

Verification of Recent Haematozoal Discoveries in Australia and Egypt

Supplementary Facts in the History of the Discovery of Australia

Supplementary Facts in the History of the Discovery of Australia

XIII.—Further Facts in the History of the Early Discovery of Australia

In the year 1861 I had the satisfaction of laying before the Society of Antiquaries, and thereby making known to the world for the first time, the important fact that the great continental island of Australia had been discovered in the year 1601 by a Portuguese navigator, named Manoel Godinho de Eredia. Up to that time the earliest authenticated discovery of any part of the great southern land was that made a little to the west and south of Cape York by the commander of the Dutch yacht the Duyfhen, or Dove, about the month of March 1606. Thus the fact which I announced in 1861 gave a date to the first authenticated discovery of Australia earlier by five years than that which had been previously accepted in history, and transferred the honour of that discovery from Holland to Portugal. The document on which this fact, so entirely new to the world, was based, was a MS. Mappe-monde in the British Museum, in which, on the northwest corner of a country which could be shown beyond all question to be Australia, stood a legend in Portuguese to the following effect:— “Nuça antara was discovered in the year 1601 by Manoel Godinho de Eredia, by command of the Viceroy Ayres de Saldanha.” This mappe-monde had the great disadvantage of being only a copy, possibly made even in the present century, from one the geography of which proved it to be some two centuries older. Still, the mere fact of its being a copy laid it open to a variety of possible objections, which fortunately I was able to forestall by arguments that I believe to be unanswerable, and which I think I need not repeat now, as they are already printed in the “Archaeologia,” vol. xxxviii. I will merely say that I had the good fortune at the time to find a happy confirmation of what was stated in the map in a little printed work which described the discoverer as a learned cosmographer and skilful captain, who had received a special commission from the Viceroy at Goa to make explorations for gold mines, and at the same time to verify the descriptions of the southern islands.

Description of the Palæozoic and Mesozoic Fossils of Queensland

Introduction . Mr. Daintree's late explorations in Queensland have added much to our knowledge of the distribution of extinct life over that extensive colony. A slight history or résumé of the progress of geological and palæontological discovery in Australia may not be out of place, and will show the difficulties attending research in a country almost untrodden and only, of necessity, very partially examined. It is hoped that the local societies may be induced to work up the varied and rich fossil fauna surrounding those cities now so extensively peopled in New South Wales, Queensland, and South Australia; and it is partly with this view that we are induced to figure the species found fossil in Queensland, many of which are new, and a few common to Asia and Europe. A knowledge of the wide distribution of identical forms and extension of old seas, under different conditions, can only be established by the united labours of many in the same field of investigation. India is now being well explored, America equally so, Southern Africa is being gradually examined; and much of Victoria has been carefully surveyed; yet we know little of the real palæontology of Australia, owing to the few published detailed descriptions and figures of the fossil fauna of the stratified rocks of the country. The labours, however, of the Rev. W. B. Clarke upon the spot, and of Professor Owen and Mr. Moore England, have thrown some light upon the distribution of extinct life in those rocks. At the

XXX.—On the Discovery of Australia by the Portuguese in 1601, Five Years before the earliest hitherto known Discovery: with Arguments in favour of a previous Discovery by the same Nation early in the Sixteenth Century. By Richard H. Major, Esq., F.S.A., in a Letter to Sir Henry Ellis, K.H., F.S.A.

If any doubt could be entertained of the importance of collecting and embodying in our literature the scattered relics of the early history of geographical discovery, the doubt might find its answer in the eager curiosity with which the more cultivated Anglo-Saxon inhabitants of America look back to every minute particular respecting the early history of their adopted country.