Editing Terra Australis (section)

==Decline of the idea==
[[Image:terraaustralis.jpg|thumb|upright=1.3|right|The available territory for a southern continent had diminished greatly in this 1657 map by the Dutch cartographer [[Jan Janssonius]]. ''Terra Australis Incognita'' ("unknown southern land") is printed across a region including the south pole without any definite shorelines.]]
Over the centuries the idea of ''Terra Australis'' gradually lost its hold. In 1616, [[Jacob Le Maire]] and [[Willem Schouten]]'s rounding of [[Cape Horn]] proved that [[Tierra del Fuego]] was a relatively small island, while in 1642 [[Abel Tasman]]'s first Pacific voyage proved that Australia was not part of the mythical southern continent. Much later, [[James Cook]] circumnavigated and charted New Zealand in 1770, showing that even it could not be part of a large continent. On his [[Second voyage of James Cook|second voyage]] he [[circumnavigation|circumnavigated]] the globe at a very high southern [[latitude]], at some places even crossing the [[Antarctic Circle]], showing that any possible southern continent must lie well within the cold polar areas.<ref name="Wales"/> There could be no extension into regions with a [[temperate climate]], as had been thought before. In 1814, [[Matthew Flinders]] published the book ''[[A Voyage to Terra Australis]].'' Flinders had concluded that the ''Terra Australis'' as hypothesized by [[Aristotle]] and [[Ptolemy]] did not exist, so he wanted the name applied to what he saw as the next best thing: "[[Australia (continent)|Australia]]" (later [[Australia|the country]]), replacing the former name for the continent, New Holland. He wrote:
{{blockquote |text=There is no probability, that any other detached body of land, of nearly equal extent, will ever be found in a more southern latitude; the name Terra Australis will, therefore, remain descriptive of the geographical importance of this country, and of its situation on the globe: it has antiquity to recommend it; and, having no reference to either of the two claiming nations,{{efn |That is, the [[United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland|United Kingdom]] and the [[Dutch Republic]]. }} appears to be less objectionable than any other which could have been selected.}}
...with the accompanying note at the bottom of the page:<ref name="Flinders" />{{rp |loc=Introduction |p=[https://archive.org/details/voyageTerraAustv1Flin/page/iii iii] }}
{{blockquote |text=Had I permitted myself any innovation upon the original term, it would have been to convert it into AUSTRALIA; as being more agreeable to the ear, and an assimilation to the names of the other great portions of the earth.}}

With the discovery of Antarctica his conclusion would soon be revealed as a mistake, but by that time the name had stuck.<ref>Avan Judd Stallard, "Origins of the Idea of Antipodes: Errors, Assumptions, and a Bare Few Facts", ''Terrae Incognitae,'' Volume 42, Number 1, September 2010, pp.&nbsp;34–51.</ref>
{{anchor|Province of Beach}}