292 GEOGRAPHICAL SCIENCE. 



Spanish, French, and Portuguese navigators, such as Hojeda, Pinzon, and 

 Cabral. 



The Portuguese seemed for a time to abandon their expeditions to the 

 New World, being so much engaged in establishing their trading stations 

 upon the west coast as they had already done upon the east coast of Africa. 

 Albuquerque and Vasco de Gama had won for them the islands of Goa and 

 Ceylon, and their possessions upon the Asiatic shores increased rapidly. But 

 their navigators could not long remain indifferent to the commercial current 

 which was drawing all the navies of Europe into American waters, and they 

 entertained the hope of discovering in the new land a passage into the Indian 

 Ocean (Fig. 207). Thus their voyages had a certain scientific tendency, and 

 were calculated to serve the progress of geography. Gaspar Cortereal sought 

 in vain northward this passage communicating with Asia. He entered the 

 Gulf of Labrador, and ascended the St. Lawrence in 1500, where he was 

 stopped by the ice. Three years previously a Venetian trader named 

 Cabotto, settled at Bristol, had attempted to discover in this direction a 

 passage to India, but the only result of his explorations was the discovery of 

 Newfoundland. The intrepid Magellan was more fortunate in his researches 

 along the east coast of South America, and he discovered in southern latitudes 

 the straits which still bear his name, and which opened up an entrance into 

 the South Sea, across which he pursued his voyage to the countless islands of 

 Polynesia (1521). Magellan, though a Portuguese, was in the service of 

 Spain when he undertook this long and perilous expedition, which had 

 such brilliant results for geographical science. 



The object of the expeditions of the Spaniards into America, which 

 followed one another in rapid succession, was to take possession of the 

 country in the name of the King of Spain, and to enrich a few adventurers 

 of various nationalities. Diaz de Solis and Pinto discovered Yucatan in 1507, 

 having disembarked at Rio Janeiro ; Pontius de Leon discovered Florida by 

 chance in 1512 ; Vasco Nuiies saw Peru in 1513, and Pizarro conquered it 

 in 1526. These conquests and discoveries were not of any immediate service 

 to geography, for the navigators thought less of studying the country than of 

 working the gold and silver mines ; but when naturalists and men of letters, 

 such as Oviedo y Valdes, J. Varezzani, Ramnusio, and other savants went to 

 the country, its geographical features became better known. 



King Francis I., who would have liked France to have had a share 



