California and the North-west Coast. 243 



ship south of that latitude, calling it New Albion, and 

 entered a port in latitude 38°, north of San Francisco. 

 Cabrillo had discovered this coast before him in 1542 under 

 the orders of Gov. Mendoza. Finally came Viscayno's 

 voyage in 1602-3, and all discovery ceased for one hundred 

 and sixty-five years, when the Spainards in 1769 redis- 

 covered Monterey. 



This ignorance of the western coast is strongly affirmed 

 by the geographer Delisle, in 1755. He observes : 



" The part of the southern or Pacific ocean to the north 

 between Japan and California at present unknown is three 

 thousand and six hundred miles wide." (Hist. Ab., p. 11), 

 Dobbs, in his account of Hudson's bay (1744) says, "I do 

 not find that any countries have been discovered by Euro- 

 peans in all that great tract between California and Japan 

 from the latitude of 38° to the Arctic circle." 



And in the same sentiment, Henry Ellis, writing the 

 preface in 1748 to the voyage of the ships Dobbs and Cali- 

 fornia says: "there lies a tract of country making part 

 of America from the Welcome or Ne Ultra to cape Blanco 

 in California, that is, from lat. 65° to 43° north, taking in 

 22 degrees of latitude and no less than thirty in longitude, 

 having an extent of coast upwards of six hundred leagues, 

 the coast of which wholly and the interior parts of it in 

 a great measure remain unknown." And we see how 

 mistaken he was in his suppositions as to the extent of 

 this ignorance, seeing that the continent stretches west 

 more than sixty degrees of longitude instead of thirty as 

 he supposed. Dobbs drew his map four years before, run- 

 ning an imaginary coast, starting from Hudson's bay lati- 

 tude 63° and from longitude 95° directly south-west to Cape 

 Blanco on the Pacific in longitude 35°, leaving room or 

 space between America and Asia for a continent larger 

 than New Holland, which new continent would on his 

 theory embrace the Russian discoveries of 1741. 



