Origins 's description of the
Ecumene, by Johannes Schnitzer (1482) In the fourth century B.C.
Aristotle hypothesized that the continents of the Northern Hemisphere must be balanced out by an unknown landmass in the Southern Hemisphere.
Ptolemy (2nd century AD) 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. The land (
terra in Latin) in this zone was the
Terra Australis. by
Piri Reis in 1513, possibly showing
Terra Australis globe from 1520 1531 double cordiform (heart-shaped) map of the world ,
Universi Orbis seu Terreni Globi, 1578. This is a copy on one sheet of Abraham Ortelius' eight-sheet
Typus Orbis Terrarum, 1564. The
Terra Australis is shown extending northward as far as New Guinea. 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, 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 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. 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 [cannibals] like 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 [after
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 (1090 - 1120) oriented with east on top and north to the left, depicting the known world (Asia, Europe, and Africa) to the left, and Terra Australis'' to the right During medieval times
Terra Australis was known by a different name, that being the
Antipodes. First widely introduced to medieval western Europe by
Isidore of Seville in his famous book the
Etymologiae, the idea gained popularity across 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 and intrigue medieval scholars for centuries.
16th century Explorers of the
Age of Discovery, 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 (1569) and
Alexander Dalrymple as late as 1767 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 in 1538 and
Abraham Ortelius in 1570. Schöner's concepts influenced the
Dieppe school of mapmakers, notably in their representation of
Jave la Grande. In
1539, the
King of Spain,
Charles V, created the
Governorate of Terra Australis granted to
Pedro Sancho de la Hoz, who in 1540 transferred the title to the conqueror
Pedro de Valdivia and later was incorporated to
Chile. 's 1556
Cosmographie Universel, 4me projection, where the northward extending promontory of the
Terre australle is called
Grande Jaue 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 and
Breton merchants at that time. 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. from 1597 , the son of
Gerardus Mercator. 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, 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, 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 in quest of the Southern Continent, proved the existence of a passage south of New Guinea, now known as
Torres Strait. 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 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 [discuss], 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".
from 1646 depicts Terra Australis Incognita'' to the east of Tierra del Fuego. The
Dutch expedition to Valdivia 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 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, separated from South America by a small strait;
New Guinea; and what would come to be called
Australia. 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, but generally much larger than the real
Antarctica, spreading far north – especially in the
Pacific Ocean.
New Zealand, first seen by the
Dutch explorer
Abel Tasman in 1642, was regarded by some as a part of the continent. A map with a
Terra Australis stretching from New Guinea to the South Pole and beyond was included in the 1676 application by
Vittorio Riccio, an Italian missionary in
Manila, to be appointed
Prefect Apostolic of
Terra Australis in order to initiate missionary activity there. His appointment was approved in 1681 but he died in 1685.
18th century Alexander Dalrymple, the Examiner of Sea Journals for the British
East India Company, 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 [8567 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), 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 in
HM Bark Endeavour to seek out the Southern Continent to the South and West of
Tahiti, 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 [sic], 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==