5(50 THE VOYAGE OF THE VEGA. [oiiap. 



fonvard between various islands to the entrance of "a soumi 

 ■svhioli ran north of America in 59" N.L. ; linally tliat he had 

 come S.W. of Iceland, and thence sailed to Lisbon, arriving 

 there before his companions, -who took the " common way," i.e. 

 south of Africa, In 1579 an English pilot certitied that he had 

 read in Lisbon in 1507 a printed account of this voyage, which 

 liowever he could not procure afterwards because all the copies 

 had been destroyed by order of the king, who considered that 

 such a discovery would have an injurious eftect on the Indian 

 trade of Portugal {PurcJnu, iii. p. 849). We now know that 

 there is land where Chacke's channel was said to be situated 

 and it is also certain that the sound between the continent oJ 

 America and the Franklin archipelago lying much farther to the 

 north was already in the sixteenth century too much filled with 

 ice for its being possible that an account of meeting with ice 

 could be omitted from a true sketch of a voyage along the north 

 coast of America. 



In 1588 a still more remarkable voyage was said to have been 

 made by the Portuguese, Lorenzo Ferrer Maldonado. He is 

 believed to have been a cosmographer who among other things 

 concerned himself with the still unsolved problem of making a 

 compass free from variation, and with the question, very dithcult 

 in his time, of tinding a method of determining the longitude 

 at sea (see the work of Amoretti quoted below, p. 38). Of his 

 imagmary voyage he has written a long narrative, of wliich a 

 Spanish copy with some drawings and maps was found in a 

 library at Milan. The narrative was published in Italian and 

 French translations by the superintendent of the library, Chevalier 

 Carlo Ainioretti,^ who besides added to the work a number of 

 his OAAii learned notes, which however do not give evidence of 

 experience in Arctic waters. The same narrative has since been 

 pubUshed in English by J. Barrow (A Chronological Historrj of 

 Voyages into the Arctic Regions, &c., London, 1818. App. p. 2-t). 

 The greater part of Maldonado's report consists of a detailed 

 plan as to the way in which the ncAv sea route would be useil and 

 fortified by the Spanish-Portuguese government.- The voyage 

 itself is referred to merely in passing. Maldonado says that in 

 the beginning of !March he sailed from NcAvfoundland along the 

 north coast of America in a westward direction. Cold, storm, 

 and darkness, were at first very inconvenient for navigation, but 

 at all events he reached "SATithout dithculty " Anian Sound," which 

 separates Asia from America. This is described in detail. Here 

 various ships were met with prepared to sail through the sound, 



1 Amoretti. T'laggio del mare Atlant'ico al Pa.^nco per la via del Xord- 

 Ovest, &c. Fattodel cajtitauo Lorenzo Ferrer ^laldouado, Pajuio mdlxxxyiii. 

 Milano, 1811. 



- At the date of j\[aldoaado's voyage Spain and Portugal were united. 



