Three European nations — Holland, Britain, and France — took the 1PONDER role in the discovery of the Australian continent with two others, Portugal and Spain, making pioneering voyages. Whether or not the Portuguese actually sailed in Australian waters, 2SIGHT the continent, perhaps even landing on its shores, is not 3CONCLUDE proven although, on balance, the weight of probability suggests that they may claim 4PRIOR of discovery. But the late-15th- and early-16th-century surge of maritime 5EXPAND that took their caravels across the Equator, around the southern tip of Africa, into the Indian Ocean, to 6STABLE trading factories along the Indian coast, in Malaysia, and to present-day Indonesia, in fact to within less than 300 miles of the Australian coast, is well documented. It stretches the bounds of 7CREDIBLE, the argument runs, that Portuguese mariners who had advanced halfway around the world in search of treasure and spices, and to reach Malacca, Java, Sumatra, and the East Indonesian archipelago, where they almost certainly picked up local knowledge of a southern continent, should not sail the extra 300 miles to satisfy their curiosity and to discover its trading 8POTENCY.