pon scientific voyages.

In January, 1644, Commodore Abel Janszoon Tasman was despatched upon his
second voyage of discovery to the South Seas, and his instructions,
signed by the Governor-General of Batavia, Antonio van Diemen, begin with
a recital of all previous Dutch voyages of a similar character. From this
document an interesting summary of Dutch exploration can be made. Tasman,
in his first voyage, had discovered the island of Van Diemen, which he
named after the then Governor of Batavia, but which has since been named
Tasmania, after its discoverer. During this first voyage the navigator
also discovered New Zealand, passed round the east side of Australia
without seeing the land, and on his way home sailed along the northern
shore of New Guinea.

But to come back to the summary of Dutch voyages found in Tasman's
instructions: During 1605 and 1606 the Dutch yacht Duyphen made two
exploring voyages to New Guinea. On one trip, the commander, after
coasting New Guinea, steered southward along the islands on the west side
of Torres Straits to that part of Australia, a little to the west and
south of Cape York, marked on modern maps as Duyphen Point, thus
unconsciously--for he thought himself still on the west coast of New
Guinea--making the first authenticated discovery of the continent.

Dirk Hartog, in command of the Endragt, while on his way from Holland to
the East Indies, put into what Dampier afterward called Shark's Bay, and
on an island, which now bears his name, deposited a tin plate with an
inscription recording his arrival, and dated October 25, 1616. The plate
was afterward found by a Dutch navigator in 1697, and replaced by
another, which, in its turn, was discovered in July, 1801, by Captain
Hamelin, of the Naturaliste, on the well-known French voyage in search of
the ill-fated La Perouse. The Frenchman copied the inscription, and
nailed the plate to a post, with another recording his own voyage. These
inscriptions were a few years later removed by De Freycinet, and
deposited in the museum of the Institute of Paris. Hartog ran along the
coast a few degrees, naming the land after his ship, and was followed by
many other voyagers at frequent intervals down to the year 1727, from
which time Dutch exploration has no more a place in Australian discovery.

During the one hundred twenty-two years of which we have records of their
voyages, although the Dutch navigators' work, compared with that done by
Cook