THE EARLIEST AUSTRALIAN RECORDS.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 3236, 14 November 1881, Page 4

THE EARLIEST AUSTRALIAN RECORDS.

"We are glad to announce the discovery of some valuable records touching tbe discovery of Australia in the sixteenth century. It is not generally known that one of the very earliest maps of Australia is now in the British Museum. It bears tho arms of the of France, and appears to have been executed in the time of Francis I. for his son the Dauphin. Another map of Australia was actually dedicatod to, or given to, Henry VIII., King of England, by a Frenchman, named Jean Kotz, who came to England in 1542, and the map bears this date. The learned researches of Mr ft. H. Major (so long connected with the map department of the British Museum) on the subject of the early discovery of Australia are well known. He awards the priority of discovery to Guillaume de Testxi, a Provencal pilot, born at Grasse, and the map executed by this Frenchman bears date 1542. But the journals of the iDutch, the great navigators of the fifteenth and two succeeding centuries, are now coming to light, and it is believed that the French iuap was etolen from the Hollanders, and the French names of the well-known points of the West Australian coast were inserted where Dutch names appeared in the original. It will be noted that on Henry VIII. and the Dauphin map the great " South Land" is called "Jave le Grand," and his distinguished from the smaller island of Java itself by the latter being ■called ' The Lytil Java.' For many years Australia was called New Holland, but the archives of Amsterdam and The Hague were almost closed to antiquaries, and the known conservative spirit of the Dutch, whose selfcomplacence could not easily be disturbed or lethargic spirit awakened into action, acted as a bar to foreign investigation. During the greater part of last month Mr J. Henniker Heaton, F.R.G.8., author of the 'Australian Dictionary of Dates,' quartered himself in Amsterdam to carry out his long expressed desire to search the archives. He has been eminently successful. He received from the Dutch Government, and from Mr F. Mullei , , and partners, Messrs Nyhoff, Yon Aa, and other welltnown authorities, the greatest assistance in his work. The result has been that by the outgoing mail Mr Heaton is dispatching through the Australian Joint-Stock Bank to the fine Free Public Library of Sydney four MSS. journals of Dutch navigators, and amongst them the joiirnal of Wm. Jans, in the Dove yacht, to Australia, besides old maps, which will give the Dutch the first claim. Meanwhile, the French geographers and 'the Societe dcs etudes Colonialcs et Maritimes, in Paris,' are being invoked and are giving the most friendly assistance in elucidating beyond doubt the history of Henry VIII.'s map of Australia. —European Mail.