The incautious skipper died of his wounds on the following day and so he did not take a part in the most momentous discovery of the voyage. “In the morning of the 16th (February) we took the sun’s altitude at sunrise, which we found to be 5° 6´; the preceding evening ditto 20° 30´; the difference being divided by two comes to 7° 42´; increasing North-easterly variation; the wind N. by E.; we were at about one and a half mile’s distance from the low-lying land in 5 or 6 fathom, clayey bottom; at a distance of about 10 miles by estimation into the interior we saw a very high mountain range in many places white with snow, which we thought a very singular sight, being so near the line equinoctial. Towards the evening we held our course E. by S., along half-submerged land in 5, 4, 3, and 2 fathom, at which last point we dropped anchor; we lay there for about five hours, during which time we found the water to have risen 4 or 5 feet; in the first watch, the wind being N.E., we ran into deeper water and came to anchor in 10 fathom, where we remained for the night.”
That is the brief account of the first discovery of the Snow Mountains of New Guinea by Jan Carstensz, whose name is now perpetuated in the highest summit of the range. Very few ships have sailed along that coast in three hundred years, and there are very many days in the year when not a sign of the mountains can be seen from the shore, so it is not very astonishing to find ships’ captains sailing on those seas who still disbelieve the story of the snow. On the same voyage Carstensz crossed the straits and sailed a considerable way down the Cape York Peninsula believing that the land was still New Guinea.
In 1636 Thomas Pool explored a large tract of the S.W. coast; Pool himself was killed by natives, but the expedition discovered three large rivers, the Kupera Pukwa, Inabuka (? Neweripa), and the Utakwa. Tasman sailed along the North coast of New Guinea in 1642 after his discovery of Van Diemen’s Land (Tasmania); and in 1644 he was sent to find out whether there was a passage between New Guinea and the large “South Land” (Australia). Apparently he cruised along the coast about as far as Merauke, and also touched Australia, but the strait was not discovered.