Austral English Part 8

1879. J. B. O'Hara, `Songs of the South,' p. 127:

"What though no weird and legendary lore Invests our young, our golden Austral shore With that romance the poet loves too well, When Inspiration breathes her magic spell."

1894. Ernest Favenc [Title]:

"Tales of the Austral Tropics."

1896. [Title]:

"The Austral Wheel--A Monthly Cycling Magazine, No. 1, Jan."

1896. `The Melburnian,' Aug. 28, p. 53

"Our Austral Spring." [Title of an article describing Spring in Australia.]

Australasia, n. (and its adjectives), name "given originally by De Brosses to one of his three divisions of the alleged Terra australis." (`O.E.D.') Now used as a larger term than Australian, to include the continent of Australia, New Zealand, Tasmania, Fiji and islands. For peculiar use of the name for the Continent in 1793, see Australia.

1756. Charles de Brosses, `Histoire des Navigations aux Terres Australes,' tom. i. p. 80:

"On peut de meme diviser le monde austral inconnu en trois portions. .. .L'une dans l'ocean des Indes au sud de l'Asie que j'appellerai par cette raison australasie."

1766. Callander, `Terra Australis,' i. p. 49 (Translation of de Brosses)(`O.E.D.):

"The first [division] in the Indian Ocean, south of Asia, which for this reason we shall call Australasia."

1802. G. Shaw, `Zoology,' iii. p. 506 (`O.E.D.'):

"Other Australasian snakes."

1823. Subject for English poem at Cambridge University:

`Australasia.'

[The prize (Chancellor's Medal) was won by Winthrop Mackworth Praed. William Charles Wentworth stood second.] The concluding lines of his poem are:

"And Australasia float, with flag unfurl'd, A new Britannia in another world."

1846. C. P. Hodgson, `Reminiscences of Australia,' p. 77:

"How far had these ideas been acted upon by the Colonists of Austral Asia?" [sic.]

1852. J. West, `History of Tasmania,' vol. 1. p. 109:

"`The Austral-Asiatic Review,' by Murray, also made its appearance [in Hobart] in February, 1828."

1855. Tennyson, `The Brook,' p. 194:

" Katie walks By the long wash of Australasian seas Far off, and holds her head to other stars, And breathes in converse seasons."

[Altered in Edition of 1894 to "breathes in April-autumns."]

1857. Daniel Bunce [Title]:

"Australasiatic reminiscences."

1864. `The Australasian,' Oct. 1, First Number [Title]:

"The Australasian."

1880. Alfred R. Wallace [Title]:

"Australasia." [In Stanford's `Compendium of Geography and Travel.']

1881. David Blair [Title]:

"Cyclopaedia of Australasia."

1890. E. W. Hornung, `Bride from the Bush,' p. 29:

"It was neither Cockney nor Yankee, but a nasal blend of both: it was a lingo that declined to let the vowels run alone, but trotted them out in ill-matched couples, with discordant and awful consequences; in a word, it was Australasiatic of the worst description."

1890. `Victorian Consolidated Statutes,' Administration and p.obate Act, Section 39:

"`Australasian Colonies,' shall mean all colonies for the time being on the main land of Australia. ..and shall also include the colonies of New Zealand, Tasmania and Fiji and any other British Colonies or possessions in Australasia now existing or hereafter to be created which the Governor in Council may from time to time declare to be Australasian Colonies within the meaning of this Act."

1895. Edward Jenks [Title]:

"History of the Australasian Colonies."

1896. J. S. Laurie [Title]:

"The Story of Australasia."

Australia, n., and Australian, adj. As early as the 16th century there was a belief in a Terra australis (to which was often added the epithet incognita), literally "southern land," which was believed to be land lying round and stretching outwards from the South Pole.

In `Proceedings of the Royal Geographical Society of Australasia,' Sydney, Jan. 1892, is printed a paper read at the Geographical Congress at Berne, by E. Delmar Morgan, on the `Early Discovery of Australia.' This paper is illustrated by maps taken from `Nordenskiold's Atlas.' In a map by Orontius Finoeus, a French cosmographer of Provence, dated 1531, the Terra australis is shown as "Terra Australis recenter inventa, sed nondum plene cognita." In Ortelius' Map, 1570, it appears as "Terra Australis nondum cognita." In Gerard Mercator's Map, 1587, as "Terra Australis" simply.

In 1606 the Spaniard Fernandez de Quiros gave the name of Terra Australis del Espiritu Santo to land which he thought formed part of the Great Southland. It is in fact one of the New Hebrides.

The word "Australian " is older than "Australia"

(see quotations, 1693 and 1766). The name Australia was adapted from the Latin name Terra Australis. The earliest suggestion of the word is credited to Flinders, who certainly thought that he was inventing the name. (See quotation, 1814.) Twenty-one years earlier, however, the word is found (see quotation, 1793); and the passage containing it is the first known use of the word in print. Shaw may thus be regarded as its inventor. According to its title-page, the book quoted is by two authors, the Zoology, by Shaw and the Botany by Smith. The Botany, however, was not published. Of the two names--Australia and Australasia--suggested in the opening of the quotation, to take the place of New Holland, Shaw evidently favoured Australia, while Smith, in the `Transactions of the Linnaean Society,' vol. iv. p. 213 (1798), uses Australasia for the continent several times. Neither name, however, passed then into general use. In 1814, Robert Brown the Botanist speaks of "Terra Australis," not of "Australia." "Australia" was reinvented by Flinders.

Quotations for " Terra Australis"--

1621. R. Burton, `Anatomy of Melancholy' (edition 1854), p. 56:

"For the site, if you will needs urge me to it, I am not fully resolved, it may be in Terra Australis incognita, there is room enough (for of my knowledge, neither that hungry Spaniard nor Mercurius Britannicus have yet discovered half of it)."