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27-695: In 1616, Dirk Hartog , captain of the Dutch East India Company ship Eendracht , encountered the west coast of the Australian mainland, meeting it close to the 26th parallel south latitude (26° south), near what is now known as Dirk Hartog Island in Western Australia . After leaving the island, the Eendracht sailed in a north-west direction along the coast of the mainland, Hartog charting as he went. He gave this land

54-637: A pewter plate to a post, now known as the Hartog plate , on which he scratched a record of his visit to the island. Its inscription (translated from the original Dutch ) read: Finding nothing of interest, Hartog continued sailing northwards along this previously uncharted coastline of Western Australia, making nautical charts up to about 22° latitude south. He then left the coast and continued on to Batavia, eventually arriving safely in December 1616, some five months after his expected arrival. Dirk Hartog left

81-718: A fleet voyaging from the Netherlands to the Dutch East Indies . Hartog set sail in January 1616 in the company of several other VOC ships, but became separated from them in a storm, and arrived independently at the Cape of Good Hope (later to become the site of Cape Town , South Africa ). Hartog then set off across the Indian Ocean for Batavia (present-day Jakarta ), utilising (or perhaps blown off course by)

108-586: A notionally much larger landmass. T.Lant van Eendracht also appeared on the world map, Nova Totius Terrarum Orbis Geographica ac Hydrographica Tabula by Jodocus Hondius II, published in Amsterdam in 1625, and on the world map by Johannes Kepler and Philipp Eckebrecht, Noua Orbis Terrarum Delineatio Singulari Ratione Accommodata Meridiano Tabb. Rudolphi Astronomicarum , composed in 1630 and published in 1658 in Kepler's Rudolphine Tables . The chart shows that

135-477: A nursery for humpback whales , dugong and turtles . The mangrove systems on the eastern margins are areas of high primary productivity feeding and restocking both the Gulf and the nearby Ningaloo Reef . A proposal for a system of solar salt evaporation ponds stretching more than 30 kilometres (19 mi) along the gulf's south-western coast has given rise to heated debate on possible environmental impacts on

162-527: Is a gulf in the north-west of Western Australia . It lies between North West Cape and the main coastline of Western Australia. It is considered to be part of the Pilbara Coast and Northwest Shelf , and the Carnarvon Basin geologic formation. It was named after Edward Pellew, 1st Viscount Exmouth by Phillip Parker King in 1818. Exmouth Gulf is a rich marine environment. It is

189-715: Is housed in the Rijksmuseum . In 2000 the Hartog plate was temporarily returned to Australia as part of an exhibition at the Australian National Maritime Museum in Sydney. This led to suggestions that the plate, considered important as the oldest-known written artefact from Australia's European history, should be acquired for an Australian museum, but the Dutch authorities have made it clear that

216-553: Is named after Hartog. Born into a seafaring family, he received his first ship's command at the age of 30 and spent several years engaged in successful trading ventures in the Baltic and Mediterranean seas. In 1616, Hartog gained employment with the Dutch East India Company ( Dutch : Vereenigde Oostindische Compagnie , commonly abbreviated to VOC), and was appointed master of the Eendracht (meaning "Concord" or "Unity"), in

243-450: Is not connected with the coast of Willems-rivier; the coast-line of Eendrachtsland does not run on; there is uncertainty as regards what is now called Shark-bay; the coast facing Houtmans Abrolhos is a conjectural one only; the coast-line facing Tortelduyf is even altogether wanting; Dedelsland and 't Land van de Leeuwin are not marked by unbroken lines . Heeres then suggests that the mid seventeenth century navigators were constantly faced by

270-420: Is now called Dirk Hartog Island after him. His was the second recorded European expedition to land on the Australian continent, having been preceded by Willem Janszoon in 1606, but the first to do so on the western coastline. Hartog spent three days examining the coast and nearby islands. The area was named Eendrachtsland after his ship, although that name has not endured. Before Hartog left, he affixed

297-594: Is worth reproducing here what Heeres wrote in 1899 about the increase of Dutch knowledge of the West Australian coastline, as follows: From this point [Willems River] then the Eendrachtsland of the old Dutch navigators begins to extend southward. To the question, how far it was held to extend, I answer that in the widest sense of the term ('t Land van Eendracht or the South-land, it reached as far as

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324-534: The 1620s as the chart is oriented with north to the left and shows the degrees of latitude on the bottom of the chart. Eendrachtsland was first revealed to the world in 1626 on the small world map on the title page of the Iournael vande Nassausche Vloot [Journal of the Nassau Fleet]. This was the first published map to show any authentic part of the Australian coastline: it shows t'Eendracht Land as part of

351-633: The Dutch, was much closer to the heart. Tasman and Visscher did a great deal towards the solution of this problem, since in their voyage of 1644 they also skirted and mapped out the entire line of the West-coast of what since 1644 has borne the name of Nieuw-Nederland, Nova Hollandia, or New Holland , [charting] from Bathurst Island to a point south of the Tropic of Capricorn . Dirk Hartog Dirk Hartog ( Dutch: [ˈdɪr(ə)k ˈɦɑrtɔx] ; baptised 30 October 1580 – buried 11 October 1621)

378-663: The South-coast, at all events past the Perth of our day) [...] More to southward we find in the chart of 1627 I. d'Edels landt, made in July 1619 by the ships Dordrecht and Amsterdam, commanded by Frederik De Houtman and Jacob Dedel. To the north of Dedelsland the coast is rendered difficult of access by reefs, the so-called (Frederik De) Houtmans-Abrolhos (now known as the Houtman Rocks), also discovered on this occasion. To

405-620: The area. The Gulf and off-shore waters beyond the Ningaloo fringing reef are home to some of Australia's more significant sport fish including marlin, Spanish mackerel, and several sub-species of tuna. The Gulf sustains one of Western Australia's largest prawn fisheries, managed by the Kailis Fishing Group, which operates under license from the Western Australian Government. The mangroves along

432-405: The eastern side of the gulf stretch for nearly 50 kilometres (31 mi). They have been identified by BirdLife International as a 420 square kilometres (160 sq mi) Important Bird Area (IBA) because they support over 1% of the world populations of pied oystercatchers and grey-tailed tattlers , as well as being an important site for the restricted-range dusky gerygone . Another IBA

459-684: The employ of the VOC upon his return to Amsterdam in 1618, resuming private trading ventures in the Baltic. In 1619 Frederik de Houtman , in the VOC ship Dordrecht , and Jacob d'Edel, in another VOC ship Amsterdam , sighted land on the Australian coast near present-day Perth which they called d'Edelsland . After sailing northwards along the coast they made landfall in Eendrachtsland . In his journal, Houtman identified these coasts with Marco Polo 's land of Beach, or Locach , as shown on maps of

486-574: The knowledge held by the Dutch of the West Australian coastline was increasing, as the chart was based on a number of voyages, beginning with this 1616 voyage of Dirk Hartog. The 1627 chart, broken here and there by unexplored openings, extends from the Willems River (believed to be the Ashburton River ) almost to Albany, Western Australia , spanning the West Australian coastline for a distance of around 1,900 km (1,200 mi). It

513-522: The name het Landt van d'Eendracht , literally Eendrachtsland, after his ship, the Eendracht (English: "Unity" or "Concord"). The earliest known appearance of that name on the charts was eleven years later in 1627 on, Caert van't Landt van d'Eendracht ("Chart of the Land of Eendracht"), by Hessel Gerritsz , however the name was in use as early as 1619. The Caert van't Landt van d'Eendracht images are showing that things were done quite differently in

540-626: The plate is not for sale. In 1966 and 1985 Hartog was depicted on Australian postage stamps , both depicting his ship. In 2016 the Perth Mint issued a 1-troy-ounce (31 g) silver coin to commemorate the 400th anniversary of Hartog's Australian landfall. The island in Shark Bay , Western Australia , where he made landfall was named Dirk Hartog Island . In Amsterdam, Canberra and fourteen other Australian towns, streets have been named in his honour. Exmouth Gulf Exmouth Gulf

567-412: The problem of the true character of this South-land, asking themselves the question: ... was it one vast continent or a complex of islands? And the question would not have been so repeatedly asked, if the line of the west-coast had been more accurately known . By 1644 most of these problems of gaps in the coastline were solved, spelling the end of the name Eendrachtsland , in favour of a name, which for

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594-525: The revised edition of the 1618 chart, we are struck by the increase of our forefathers' knowledge of the south-west coast. This revised edition gives the entire coast-line down to the islands of St. François and St. Pieter (133° 30' E. Long. Greenwich), still figuring in the maps of our day: the Land of Pieter Nuyts, discovered by the ship het Gulden Zeepaard in 1627. [...] North of Willems rivier, this so-called 1618 chart [with additions] has still another addition, _viz_. G. F. De Witsland, discovered in 1628 by

621-445: The ship Vianen commanded by G. F. De Witt. By the mid to late 1620s the Dutch had gathered a good deal of information, enabling them to chart the west coast of what had become known by then as Eendrachtsland with some accuracy. Heeres then goes on to say that the coastline showed breaks in various places, due to unexplored openings such as Exmouth Gulf . These gaps are clearly visible on the full sized 1627 chart image. De Witt's land

648-463: The south, in about 32° S. Lat. Dedelsland is bounded by the Landt van de Leeuwin, surveyed in 1622. Looking at the coast more closely still, we find in about 29° 30, S. Lat. the name Tortelduyff (Turtle Dove Island), to the south of Houtmans Abrolhos, an addition to the chart dating from about 1624. [...] So much for the highly interesting chart of Hessel Gerritsz of the year 1627. If we compare with it

675-415: The strong westerly winds known as the " Roaring Forties " which had been noted earlier by the Dutch navigator Hendrik Brouwer as enabling a quicker route to Java . On 25 October 1616, at approximately 26° latitude south, Hartog and crew came unexpectedly upon "various islands, which were, however, found uninhabited." He made landfall at an island off the coast of Shark Bay , Western Australia , which

702-467: The time such as that of Petrus Plancius and Jan Huyghen van Linschoten . Eighty years later, on 4 February 1697, the Dutch explorer Willem de Vlamingh landed on the island and by chance found the Hartog plate, which lay half-buried in sand. He replaced it with a new plate which reproduced Hartog's original inscription and added notes of his own, and took Hartog's original back to Amsterdam , where it

729-518: Was a 17th-century Dutch sailor and explorer . Dirk Hartog's expedition was the second European group to land in Australia and the first to leave behind an artifact to record his visit, the Hartog Plate . His name is sometimes alternatively spelled Dirck Hartog or Dierick Hartochsz . Ernest Giles referred to him as Theodoric Hartog . The Western Australian island Dirk Hartog Island

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