New Zealand
Index
Search
Contact us
it must be prodigiously smaller in extent than the theoretical continent makers have supposd it to be. We have by our track provd the absolute falsity of above three fourths of their positions, and after that the rema[in]ing part can not be much rely’d upon; but above all, we have taken from them their firmest Ground work, in Proving New Zealand to be an Island, which I beleive was lookd upon even by the most thinking people to be in all probability at least a part of some Vast Countrey. All this we have taken from them: the land seen by Juan Fernandes, the land seen by the Duch squadron under Hermite, signs of Continent seen by Quiros, and the same by Roggewein, &c &c have by us been provd not to have at all related to a Continent. As for their reasoning about the Balancing of the two poles, which always appeard to me to be a most childish argument, we have already shorn off so much of their supposd counterbalancing land that by their own account the South pole would already be too light, unless what we have left should be made of very
 |
Voyaging Accounts |  |
© Derived from State Library of NSW Transcription of Banks's Journal page (vol. 2) 224, February 2004
Published by kind permission of the Library
To cite this page use: https://paulturnbull.org/project/southseas/journals/-banks_remarks-254.html