Two Sets of Tasman Longitudes in Seventeenth and Eighteenth Century Maps

Abstract

The article discusses the significance of evidence in a group of seventeenth and eighteenth century maps displaying similarities in relation to Tasman manuscript data and Tasmania charts. The generally-held view that Tasman data originally reached publication only through the Dutch East India Company and their official cartographer, Joan Blaeu, does not stand up to close examination. Printed maps portraying Tasmania further west than in Blaeu maps but without other Tasman discoveries are shown to derive in the Tasmania area from a faultily-compiled map, which used as a prototype a copy of Gilsemans' manuscript chart, illicitly obtained, and believed to delineate Tasmania coastlines in relation to an Azores prime meridian passing over the Peak of Tenerife, in the Canary Islands. Placement of part of New Zealand and Pacific islands further west in maps suggests reworked longitude figures and adjustment of the longitude figure for Mauritius, Tasman's base meridian. Since J. Blaeu publicized Tasman data according to official information in his 1646 revised world map, the Tasmania placement error and the irregular New Zealand features including use of the name 'Staten Land' indicate that a Blaeu rival first published Tasman data previous to 1646.

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