BEFORE CAPTAIN COOK.

Marlborough Express, Volume XLVI, Issue 196, 19 August 1912, Page 6

BEFORE CAPTAIN COOK.

A Jfew 'years ago Mr Lawrence Hargreaye, a Sydney scientist of standing, came, forward with the theory that, in exploration work on the. -East Coast of Australia, Spaniards forestalled Cook by nearly two centuries. They landed in Sydney Harbor, remained in the country for some years, and had several fights with the natives. • His,chief evidence in support of this was a series of drawing on rocks . near "Woollahra Point. The theory, so far as we have read, has not had wide acceptance. Additional evidence in support of it was uncovered a few weeks ago, when the heavy weather laid bare another interesting; series of drawings on the rocks at Carrara, Rose Bay. Moreover, Mr Hargreave, after several hours' work with pick and shovel, dis-

covered what he believes to be a shelving grid, on which a Spanish vessel was drawn up for repairs. A portion of the grid consists of stone blocks embedded in clay, and several of the blocks have Spanish symbols of conquest carved on them. One carving represents an anchor, a heart, and a sword, the arms' of the Santa Yzabel, and it is known that in 1595 a Spaniard named. Mendana lost a vessel of that name. The carvingjs, Mr Hargreaye declares, cannot possibly "be aborignal, and no native ever made such a thing as a grid for haul' ing up a ship. Sixty yards up the hillside is a large boulder, with two. eye-bolts in it, in a suitable position for attaching cables to pull a vessel on to the grid. The very name Carrara Mr Hargreave traces to a Spanish source. The word "Carraca," Spanish for.carack, appjies to the kind of vessel used in the East Indies, and the aborigines, having no name for a large vessel, took "Carraca" from the Spaniards, and in time it as changed to Carrara. Mr Hargreave thinks there are a number of other carvings round the spot, but they could only be discovered by a dredge. He is quite positive from the drawings at Rose Bay and other parts that Spaniards were in Sydney Harbor at the end of the sixteenth century, and probably these new discoveries will result in more attention being given to his contention.