1897-8. TRANSACTIONS. 35 



great river or deep indentation tliey were to make the great 

 discovery that would wrest from the Old World trade-path its 

 pre-eminence and give the western people of Europe their 

 share of the commerce that had enriched the Mediterranean 

 countries. Finding no opening in all their search along the 

 shores from Hudson Strait to Magellan Strait, they sailed 

 round the southern end of the continent and turning north- 

 ward painfully began anew their search for the passage of 

 whose existence they were so positive that they called it, in 

 advance of discovery, the Anian Strait, 



Among the early navigators who searched the western 

 coasts of the continent, one of the earliest was Juan de Fuca, 

 a Greek sailor engaged by the Spanish Government and sent 

 out by the Spanish Viceroy at Acapulco in Mexico. He 

 asserted that he had found the desired passage in the Strait 

 that separates Vancouver Island from the mainland and into 

 which the Fraser River opens its wide mouth. This was in 

 1592 and we have a reminder of the Greek sailor's trip in the 

 place-name, "Juan de Fuca Straits." Before this effort Ad- 

 miral Drake— the great seaman who took so active a part in 

 the revolution of the i6th Century by which the transition 

 from galley warfare to warfare under sail, from the period of 

 oars to the period of sails, was effected, and the further evolu- 

 tion of the British ship of war from its prototype, the Drakar 

 or long ship of the Norsemen, to the " Terrible " type of 

 steam-driven battle-ships, was made possible — in 1579 visited 

 the Northern Pacific Ocean, having with him much plunder 

 of Spanish vessels which he greatly desired to convey to 

 English ports as swiftly and as safely as possible. He went 

 north to the 49th parallel of latitude, found nothing that 

 suggested a passage way through to the North Atlantic, turned 

 the bows of his vessels southward and went to the " Island 

 Kingdom " by way of stormy Cape Horn, from impalement 

 on which his good seamanship saved him * 



In 1774 Juan Perez in command of an expedition of dis- 

 covery sailed from San Bias to head off the Russians then 

 making explorations in the North Pacific Ocean. His instruc- 

 tions were to make land as far north as the 60th degree of 

 latitude and take possession in the name of the King of Spain. 

 He visited Queen Charlotte Islands and Nootka Sound which 

 he named San Lorenzo^ a name which took no hold but soon 



*Cape Horn was discovered and named by Schouten in 1616 aftey 

 l^is birth place the' town of Horn in the Netberlanc^s, 



