460 PROCEEDINGS OF SECTION E. 



of the northern promontory is another gulf. Then follows 

 the Terra Psittacorum, lying nearly due east and west in 

 about 44° S. ; then the Promontorlum Terras Australis of 

 Enciso in 42° S. and lo"^ E. from Boavista. From this 

 cape the coast-line trends southwards to rejoin the Terra del 

 Fuego. 



An element unknown to the French cartographers occui-s in 

 this conception, namely, Tierra del Fuego, and its conjunction 

 with the Terra Australis. There was an old theory that 

 a strait divided the continent of South America and con- 

 nected the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, and when De Solis 

 discovered the mouth of La Plata it was believed that he had 

 discovered the entrance to this strait. (Pigafetta, Voyage 

 of IVIagelkni, p. 48.) The same theory is upheld by 

 Schoener on his globe of 1520, in which the strait is placed 

 in about 45° S., and is made to divide the Terra Nova 

 from another continent named Brasilia Inferior. The 

 Genoese pilot who recounts the voyage tells us that Magellan 

 successively entered the Rio de ia Plata and the Bay of St. 

 Matthias, in the expectation of finding an entrance to the 

 strait. And when the strait was actually found, it was 

 assumed that the land which lay to the south of it was a part 

 of the Terra Australis. An inscription on a map entitled 

 Brasilia et Peruvia in the Speculum Orbis shows how 

 confused were the ideas of geographers on the subject 

 of the Terra Australis; it runs: — " Chaesdia seu Australis 

 Terra quani nautarum vulgus Tierra di Fuego vocant alii 

 Psittacorum Terrain." This error was not removed until 

 Drake, in his voyage round the world, was driven to fully 

 57° S. in September, 1578, when he found that the two 

 oceans united, and that islands only lay to the south of 

 Magellan's Strait. The assumed continuity of the Tierra del 

 Fuego with the Terra Australis would induce the ascription 

 of the discovery of the latter to Magellan. This was done 

 by Mercator, Ortelius, and others, for they inscribe on 

 their Terra Australis the words : — " Hanc continentem 

 australem nonulli Magellanicam regionem ab ejus inventore 

 nuncupant." 



The Terra del Fuego of Mercator and Oi'telius is perhaps 

 a misplaced portion of the mainland of America. At least 

 there is a coincidence of nomenclature suggestive of some 

 such misplacement. A Cabo Deseado, correctly placed at 

 the western entrance of the straits, is also to be found on the 

 Hychograjjlde Portugaise near the Gulf of Paria ; Golfo di 



