for a long time, people had believed that there was a great continent in the far south of earth. they thought this "terra australis" would "balance" the lands in the north like europe, asia and north africa. people have believed this from the times of ptolemy (1st century ad). he suggested this idea to keep the balance of all known lands in the world. pictures of a large land in the south were common in maps. in the late 17th century, people discovered that south america and australia were not part of the mythical "antarctica". however, geographers still believed that antarctica was much bigger than it really was.