Precis 4

Early Days on Eyre Peninsula 4

THE COMING OF DUTCH NAVIGATORS

This article, leading up to the early days of Eyre Peninsula and the coming of the Dutch, was written [23 Nov 1934] especially for 'The Port Lincoln Times" by Mr. J. D. Somerville . . .

The southern coast of Australia was unknown before 1627, in which year Pieter Nuyts sailed along it, from Cape Leeuwin to about Decres Bay. Nuyts was of Dutch nationality. The mention of that race brings forcibly to our minds the important part they played in the discovery of Australia, or as they termed it, the Great South Land, which name was replaced, subsequently by New Holland.

In the early days, there were all sorts of myths, surmises and conjectures of a great unknown land, in the southern hemisphere, some large mass of land that was necessary to balance the continents in the northern.

Many nations claim to have been the first to sight this unknown land, but the Dutch were the first, definitely, to break the continuity of these conjectures . . .

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