THE UNKNOWN SOUTHERN LAND
The "unknown southern land" was an imaginary continent, appearing on European maps from the fifteenth to the eighteenth century. It was first put there by a Greek map maker in the first century AD. He believed that south of the Indian Ocean a continent existed with a mild climate, where the people were very wealthy. However, he warned that it could not be reached because it was surrounded by a ring of fire.
In the Middle Ages Western people rejected that theory because they believed that the world was flat, so there could not be a continent on the other side of the world. If you were to sail across the ocean, you would fall off the earth. Besides, they argued that there could not be people beyond the ring of fire if all people came from Adam and Eve.
Later European map makers copied this continent onto their maps again although nobody had ever seen it. Scientists argued for its existence saying that there should be a continent in the south to balance the known continents in the north. Usually the land was shown as a continent around the South Pole, but much larger than Antarctica, as we know it now.
Tasman sailed past Australia without seeing the continent, but discovered Tasmania and the west coast of New Zealand, which he thought was part of the southern continent. Around this time, the other European nations lost their interest in the search for "the unknown southern land" and concentrated on the Asian continent instead. For some time there were no voyages o/f discovery to the region.
The French were very active in the eighteenth century. One of the French sea captains reported that he had seen very short people. What he needed was a new pair of glasses, because what he had seen were not people but penguins. Another Frenchman reported that he had discovered paradise, but he was hanged for telling lies when he came back home. As late as 1767 an English scientist published a survey of all discoveries in the southern part of the Pacific Ocean up till then. He was positive about the existence of a large unknown continent, and believed its northern coast to be lying somewhere in the Pacific Ocean. Based on this report the English government decided to ask Captain Cook to go and look for this continent.
James Cook travelled around the world making maps between 1768 and 1771 on his ship, the Endeavour. The English government also gave him secret instructions to search for the mysterious continent. After visiting.Tahiti, Cook set sail to the south, where he expected to find land. Unable to find it, he decided to set sail for New Zealand, which had already been discovered by the Dutch. Passing between the North and the South Island Cook discovered the east coast of Australia more or less by accident. When Cook arrived back in England in 1771, he still could not answer the question whether there was an unknown southern continent or not.
So, in 1772 the British government sent him on a second expedition to solve the problem of the southern continent once and for all. Cook sailed as far south as possible. On 10 December, 1772 he saw the first iceberg. For the next two summers, Cook sailed between icebergs searching for land, which he found at last. Naturally, he thought it was the southern continent, but he was very disappointed when it turned out to be just a small island covered with snow. James Cook did not discover Antarctica, but when he came home in 1775 he was sure that there was no great southern continent with a mild climate, as scientists had believed for hundreds of years. |