Early Voyages to Terra Australis, Now Called Australia: / A Collection of Documents, and Extracts from Early Manuscript Maps, Illustrative of the History of Discovery on the Coasts of That Vast Island, from the Beginning of the Sixteenth Century to the Time of Captain Cook.

by Richard Henry Major

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[1]. Reference is here made, 1stly, to that most remarkable and often quoted passage from the Medea of Seneca:

“Venient annis

Sæcula seris, quibus Oceanus

Vincula rerum laxet, et ingens

Pateat tellus, Tiphysque novos

Detegat Orbes, nec sit terris

Ultima Thule.”

2ndly, to the island of Atlantis, described by Plato, in the Timæus, as lying in the Atlantic, opposite the Pillars of Hercules, and exceeding in size the whole of Africa and Asia.

And 3rdly, to the imaginary island of St. Brandan, seen at intervals far out in the Atlantic by the inhabitants of the Canary Islands.