126 DISCOVERIES OF 1^88. 



annals of Spanish literature, and was probably 

 selected on this account to cover the gross impos- 

 ture of ascribing to him a fictitious voyage, in 

 which he is supposed to have effected a passage by 

 the north-west from tbe Atlantic to the Pacific, 

 and back again the following year. Under the 

 article " Laurent Ferrer Maldonado," in the Biblio- 

 theca Hispana of Nicolas Antonio, we are told that 

 he was well skilled in nautical matters and in 

 geography; that he published a book entitled 

 Imagen del Mundo^ &c.* and that he (Antonio) had 

 himself seen in the hands of Mascarenas, bishop 

 of Segovia, the manuscript relation of a voyage 

 purporting to be an account of the discovery of 

 the strait of Anian, made by the author in the year 

 1588.t Antonio de Leon Pinelo also bears testi- 

 mony to the talents of Maldonado as a navigator, 

 and says, that he presented to the council of the 

 Indies (of which Pinelo was a member) two plans, 

 one of which related to a method of rendering' the 

 magnetic needle not subject to variation, and the 

 other, to the finding of the longitude at sea. J The 

 Spaniards, in fact, not only acknowledge Maldo- 

 nado as a navigator and a man of genius, but would 

 appear not wholly to discredit a forgery, which, 



* Imagen del Mundo sohre la Esfera, Cosmographia, SfC. comp. 

 apud Joh. Garsiam, 1626. 



t Relacion del Desciibrimiento del Estrecho de Anian hecho por el 

 autor, <^c.— Bibl. Hisp. torn. ii. p. 2. 



J Epitome de la Bibl. Orient. SfC, Madrid, 1629, 



