EARLY AUSTRALIA.

Dominion, Volume 2, Issue 574, 31 July 1909, Page 5

EARLY AUSTRALIA.

/ SIXTEENTH CENTURY SPANIARDS . (By Telegraph.—Preai AHoelatlon —Copyright I : >; , , " ! Sydney, July 30. ' Some curious rook carvings have been unearthed, at .Woollahra Point, in Sydney Harbour, which indicate that Spaniards camped at tho spot from 1595 to 1597. . i

FOUR RACES BEFORE ENGLISHMEN. : According to; a standard authority, accidental discoveries,: in Australasia': were made by the bpaniards, as early as .1526, but the' first : accurate knowledge is due to the Dutch, who; in 1606 explored a part of the coast of Papua (New guinea). -In the samo year, 1606,' Torres, "a Spaniard, passed through the, Straits that now bear, his name .between Papua and Australia, and .gave the first,correct report thereon; A Portuguese, - Manuel Godinho de Eredia, claimed t0 . nave ■ discovered Australia in 1601; hut, -aa against this; there are the records of the early Spaniards, while it was alleged in 1872 by Mr: 11., ii. Major that Australia was known to the ? r ™ e „ l !, P" or t *<> 153 1. Pollowing -up their work in 1606, Dutch navigators surveyed' the Australian coasts, as ; follows:—North coast, by Zeachen, m.IGIS; west, by Edels, 1619;-south by Nuyts,. 1C2(; north, by Tasman, .-in : 1627. lasman reaohed Now Zealand in 1642; Dampier did not reaclr Australia, till the last decade of tnß seventeenth' century. , ' . ':