Talk:Pierre Desceliers

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[edit] Australia is shown?

The comment "Australia is shown, 200 years before its "discovery" by James Cook, and is undoubtedly based on the explorations of the Portuguese and the Dutch" needs to be reviewed as its neither accurate or in keeping with the NPV that has been established on all other wikipedia articles on this and related topics.

I feel it would be accurate to write something like " a landmass entitled Jave La Grande is shown in the approximate position of Australia, which has led to speculation that it is proof of European exploration of Australia in the sixteenth century."

The old chestnut of stating Cook "discovered Australia", then correcting it, really has no place in any history writings today. Similarly, as there is no evidence that the Dutch influenced the Jave la Grande section of the Dieppe maps, its quite incorrect to state this. The accompanying map ought to be titled exactly as Desceliers did - detail of a map of Jave La Grande (date) by Desceliers.

I take it some of this material may have come from French WP. Interesting, but we dont have to repeat any errors in the English WP.--Nickm57 (talk) 23:08, 23 May 2008 (UTC)