CHANGING COASTLINES PUTTING AUSTRALIA ON THE WORLD MAP 1943-1993 Edited by Michael Richards & Maura O'Connor A NATIONAL LIBRARY OF AUSTRALIA TRAVELLING EXHIBITON CHANGING COASTLINES PUTTING AUSTRALIA ON THE WORLD MAP 1493-1993 Edited by Michael Richards & Maura O'Connor National Library of Australia Canberra 1993 Front cover: This intriguing world map comes from Christopher Plantin's Polyglot Bible of 1569-72. The map speculates about the location of the scattered tribes of the Jewish diaspora, and finds Solomon's fabled Ophir in north America. A mysterious southern landmass rises out of the sea to the south of the Spice Islands. Its source is not known. Benedictus Arias Montanus Sacrae Geographiae tabulam ex antiquissimorum cultop Familiis a Mose pecensitis (1572) Back cover: Bugis Sea Chart of the Indonesian Archipelago (1828) Reproduced from Tijdshcrift van het Koninklijk Nederlands Aardrijkskundig Genootschap 52 (1935), courtesy of the Australian National University Library © National Library of Australia 1993 Itinerary: National Library of Australia, Canberra November 1993 - February 1994 Australian National Maritime Museum, Sydney March-May 1994 National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication entry Western Australian Museum, Perth June - August 1994 National Library of Australia. Changing coastlines: putting Australia on the world map, 1493-1993. Bibliography. ISBN 0 642 10610 X. 1. National Library of Australia—Exhibitions. 2. Cartography—Australia—History—Exhibitions. 3. Australia—Historical geography—Maps—Exhibitions. 4. Australia—Maps—Exhibitions. 5. Australia—Discovery and exploration—Exhibitions. I. Richards, Michael, 1952- . II. O'Connor, Maura, 1952- . III. Title. 912.940749471 Generously sponsored by Bounty Cruises Curators: Michael Richards and Maura O'Connor Curatorial assistant: Glenis Israel Consultant: Professor Terry Birtles, University of Canberra Exhibitions manager: David Ellis Exhibition design: Hewitt Design Associates Sound design: Kevin Bradley Catalogue design: Kathy Jakupec Printed by Pirie Printers, Canberra EXPLORE THE PAST TODAY CONTENTS Changing Coastlines 5 Michael Richards and Maura O'Connor Arabic Navigational Texts 7 Gerald R. Tibbetts A Continent Takes Shape: 11 The Dutch Mapping of Australia Giinter Schilder Asian Knowledge of the 17 Australian Coast C.C. Macknight British Charting of Australian Waters 20 T.M. Perry Beach Maps 24 Andrew D. Short Further Reading 26 Checklist 27 Hartmann Schedel The invention of printing Untitled Ptolemaic World in the fifteenth century Map (1493) revolutionised the copying of graphic information. It Based on ideas already gave particular impetus to ancient when it was printed the ideas of Claudius five hundred years ago. this Ptolemy, a Greek-Egyptian is nonetheless a modern geographer of the second map for two reasons: it is century of the Christian era. printed, not hand-drawn, After his work was and it is derived from a translated into Latin in world map that could he about 1406 it dominated verified and corrected European geographical because it was based on a thinking for more than a grid system of coordinates. century. CHANGING COASTLINES As mediators between an inner mental world and an outer compared to the potential wealth that war, trade physical one, maps are fundamental tools helping the human and piracy could win to its north. Scraps of mind make sense of its universe at various scales. Moreover, they are undoubtedly one of the oldest forms of human geographical knowledge about Australia, often communication ... Mapping, like painting, precedes both picked up by accident as Spain, Portugal, written language and systems involving number, and though England and the Netherlands vied for trade and maps did not become everyday objects in many areas of the imperial power, were not added to for centuries. world until the European Renaissance, there have been relatively few mapless societies in the world at large. The booming Chinese economy of the eighteenth J.B. Harley, The History of Cartography, century and the loss of her American colonies Volume I (1987), p.1 forced Britain to concentrate its trade in Asia from the 1780s, soon after the British Admiralty had Most histories of the mapping of Australia tell a pretty well solved the question of Terra story of white navigators and explorers piecing Australis—largely, but by no means entirely, together a more or less accurate picture of what through the first two voyages of Cook. The Australia really looks like. Much has been settlement at Botany Bay, the birthplace of white written, often with great passion and scholarly Australia, was the result. Maps chart the story, just thoroughness, in an attempt to establish who were as subsequent mapping done out of Sydney tells of the first Europeans to visit and map these shores. the pattern of Australian trade and commerce as The navigators are usually presented in a heroic much as the position of reefs and wrecks. mould, Captain James Cook being the archetypal figure. Often, the story is told to validate one To us it matters little whether or not Portuguese particular European nation's contribution to the mariners visited Australia before the Dutch, as discovery and settlement of Australia. Changing some believe. Maps are tools, made to tell people Coastlines takes a different approach, in line about places. They may or may not be meant to with one of the most interesting trends in current guide actual travel: many are simply ways of writing about cartographic history. The exhibition locating people in a 'known world'. Early argues that particular maps are important, not geographic, and perhaps cartographic, knowledge simply because they contained information new of Australia in Western Europe kept in secrecy to Europe, but also because of their impact on the can have had only limited use and therefore course of history, and for what they can tell us significance. This is not to deny the fascination of today about the perception of Australia in the early travel and the reports of the men and minds of those who created and used them. women who braved the seas, the unknown lands and the uncertain hospitality of far-distant people, Changing Coastlines reminds us that Australia in order to discover the world. The word has always been linked to Asia. Nowhere is this 'discovery' has become unfashionable in this more apparent than in cartographic history. context, but used in its eighteenth-century Europeans came to Asia, and hence Australia, meaning, which is simply to see, to find for simply because of the wealth and vast extent of oneself, it is a fine word and should not be driven Asian trade. Frequently they relied on Arab and from our vocabulary by the demands of political other Asian pilots and their geographical correctness. But the great interest aroused in our knowledge, and often on Asian crews as well. media by reports of ancient ships, mahogany or Australia was investigated only inasmuch as it otherwise, and by other alleged evidence of early was on the edge of the bustling ports, the European visits to Australian shores, is emporiums and the fabulous spice islands of sometimes highly suspect. Above all, it denies the Southeast Asia. Most who looked concluded that achievement of Aboriginal people, who were the the southern continent was of little significance first people to find and settle Australia. 5 The generous support of Bounty Cruises and the Bruce and Joy Reid Foundation sponsoring the THE MAP COLLECTION OF THE exhibition is gratefully acknowledged. The NATIONAL LIBRARY OF exhibition has also benefited from the willing AUSTRALIA support of lenders and advisors. We wish to thank the State Library of New South Wales, the Royal Since 1901, donations and purchases of Australian Navy Hydrographic Office, the historical Australian maps together with a legal deposit arrangement for all Australian National Museum of Australia, the Museum of mapping have ensured that the National Victoria and an anonymous lender approached Library of Australia's Map Collection is the through the good offices of Hordern House Rare largest and most comprehensive in the Books Pty Ltd, among the former, and Professor country. With an eye for the rare and unusual, Terry Birtles of the University of Canberra among collectors such as E.A. Petherick, Sir John the latter. We are grateful also to the distinguished Ferguson, Sir Rex Nan Kivell and R.V. Tooley contributors of brief essays to this catalogue. An ensured that significant maps such as the rare exhibition such as this can only skim the surface of 1659 Doncker Sea Atlas and early Australian real estate sales plans were included in their a huge subject with its own vast literature. We offer collections, now in the Library. Consequently, a brief list of further reading, and urge you to the collection is rich in every aspect of the consult your local library for more references. mapping of the Australian continent, ranging from early sixteenth-century concepts of an unknown Australia and subsequent discovery Michael Richards, Exhibitions Curator, and exploration to detailed cadastral mapping National Library of Australia of her cities, towns and countryside. Maura O'Connor, Map Curator, National Library of Australia India Orientalis (1535) detail 6 ARABIC NAVIGATIONAL TEXTS It is important to stress the part played by local all the ports of the Indian Ocean in the form of navigators in the opening up of the Indian Ocean. Pole star altitudes and bearings ('Umdat al- Centuries before the European trading ventures Mahriya fi dabt al-'ilm al-bahriya and Minhaj al- appeared on the scene, there was considerable fakhir fi 'ilm al-bahr al-zakhir). It is therefore trading activity in the Ocean. All peoples living possible for us to produce charts from the on the edge of the Ocean were sailors and the information given, although there is no evidence larger political and social groups probably that the Arabs themselves produced such charts. produced naval and commercial fleets which They seem to have gone no further than listing sailed over a considerable portion of the Ocean's ports with the star altitudes and bearings which surface.