through the Strait of Magellan and into the Pacific, which was widely read by later navigators including the survivors of the Wager (part of Anson's fleet), who used this account for their own navigation through the passage.

The editor, Tancred Robinson, gives a r┌sum┌ of earlier voyages, including those of De Quiros, Drake and Magellan, and makes a plea for scientific exploration of the globe, lamenting ?that the English nation have not sent with their Navigators,

some skilful Painters, Naturalists, and Mechanists, under publick Stipends and Encouragement as the Dutch and French have done??.

It is the Tasman voyage that is of the greatest interest here: one of very few contemporary printed accounts of the fundamental voyage, the book is therefore of the greatest importance to an Australian collection, as it contains one of

the earliest accounts of Abel Janszoon Tasman's famous voyage of 1642 from Batavia, in which he discovered Tasmania and New Zealand and visited Tonga and Fiji (Hill) as well as visiting New Guinea and the Solomon Islands. The editor exclaims of Tasman's voyage: 'tis the Discovery of a new World, not yet

known to the English, 'Tis probable by Abel Jansen Tasman?s Navigation, that New Guinea, New Carpentaria, and New Holland, are a vast prodigious Island, which he seems to have encompass'd in his Voyage??.

Hill, 1476; Sabin, 72186.