The Tasman Map of 1644 and Its Derivatives

The author of this article deals, in the first place, with the manuscript map of Abel Janszoon Tasman of 1644, which is the that time since it sums up all discoveries made in that area up to 1644. The map records the results of Tasman's voyages in the years 1642-1643 and 1644 which brought, among others, the discovery of what is now called Tasmania and New Zealand as well as of a considerable part of the northern coast of Australia. The routes of both the voyages are shown on the map. It was the Batavia Governor-General Van Diemen by whose order the map was drawn, most probably under Tasman's personal supervision; the charte was to serve as an original record of the discoveries for the information of the representatives of the East Indian Company in Amsterdam. With regard to the date of its origin the map is fairly accurate, particularly the northern coast of Australia. Its nomenclature is rather poor (the entire nomenclature of Australia, Tasmania and New Zealand contained in the Tasman map is quoted in the closing part of the article) and the spelling suggests that the draughtsman might have been a Javanese or Chinese. The map is drawn on a cylindrical projection, the degrees of longitude and latitude are represented by coloured lines, and the drawing brings also the loxodromes; besides, the chart is richly decorated. At first, the Tasman map of 1644 was deposited in the archives of the East Indian Company in Amsterdam and later conveyed into the hands of cartographers who continued in the trade even after the company had stopped its activity. Prince Roland Bonaparte, who owned it since 1891, bequethed it to the people of Australia. At present, the map is deposited in the Mitchell Library, Sydney. Since the map has become almost illegible, the Australian cartographer J. Emery made a coloured copy of it in 1946. For a long time, the Tasman map was not surpassed, and was copied by most contemporary European cartographers. The author describes the most important derivatives of the Tasman map in the next part of his article. He ascribes the greatest importance and value to the maps made by the Dutch cartographer Pieter Goos (the map of the Australian area of ca. 1660-1669, the maps of East India of ca. 1662 and 166, the map of the Pacific of 1664). The author describes then the maps of the Australian area and the Pacific by M. Thevenot (1666), P. Duval (1665, 1679), T. Bowrey (ca. 1687), R. G. de Vagondy (1752, 1756). The series of the derivatives of the Tasman manuscript map of 1644, which can be traced as late as the 70's of the 18th cent. (i. e. up to the discovery of the eastern coast of Australia by J. Cook), is then concluded by St. Bellin's map (1753). The Tasman map, however, was being partly copied even after Cook's discoveries, for until 1802-3, when Flinders succeeded in circumnavigating Australia, the northern coast of Australia was never charted so precisely as in the case of the Tasman map.