Abel Janszoon Tasman's journal of his discovery of Van Diemen's Land and New Zealand in 1642 : with documents relating to his exploration of Australia in 1644, being photo-lithographic facsimiles of the original manuscript in the Colonial Archives at The Hague, with an English translation and facsimiles of original maps to which are added Life and labours of Abel Janszoon Tasman by J.E. Heeres and Observations made with the compass on Tasman's voyage by Dr. W. van Bemmelen.

For some years past numerous applications, in the first place from Australia, have been made to us for documents and works relating to Tasman and his discoveries. In the course of the investigations required on our part in order to comply with the wishes of such applicants, we soon became convinced that all existing works on the subject are either unreliable or sadly incomplete.

Even Jacob Swart's edition of Tasman's Journal in his Verhandelingen en Berigten beirekkelijk het Zeweezen [Papers and Reports relative to matters of navigation], Amsterdam 1854-60)[1], turned out to be untrustworthy, also as regards the annexed reproduction of the official chart of the voyages of 1642-44.[…]These traditionary misconceptions have long been an eyesore to us, and in order to put an end to them for good and all, we determined to have a facsimile reproduction made of the official Journal of the expedition of 1642/3, signed by Tasman himself, and preserved among the State Archives at The Hague; to subjoin to this reproduction an English translation of the text, as close as would be found compatible with intelligibility; to prefix to the whole work an elaborate introduction, and append a number of historical annotations, the introduction and notes to be written by the scholar on whom a task like this would almost naturally devolve, viz. Prof. J. E. Heeres, LL. D., since September 1897, Professor of Colonial History at the Colonial Institute, Delft, at the time one of the conservators of the invaluable Colonial Archives at The Hague. -- Preface