April 29, 1904.] 



SCIENCE. 



693 



map. The fact is not referred to in the 

 written history, and as the names remained 

 limited to this map, which only became 

 known within the last few years, this voy- 

 age did not constitute a notable permanent 

 contribution to the knowledge of the geog- 

 raphy of the region. 



In 1527 an anonymous cartographer of 

 the Casa de la Contrataeion of Seville (prob- 

 ably Diego Ribeiro, author of the very sim- 

 ilar map of 1529 ) organized a map in which 

 the northeast coast was represented accord- 

 ing to the data registered in that department, 

 which, according to the express declaration 

 of Diego Ribeiro in his map of 1529, was 

 derived exclusively from the voyages of 

 Pinzon and Lepe. In this map, as in that 

 of 1529, the Amazonas is figured in a posi- 

 tion that corresponds better with the south- 

 ern mouth (or Rio Para) than Avith the 

 northern one, which is reduced to a simple 

 bay with the name of 'Furna Grande,' al- 

 though its proper position under the equa- 

 tor, as in the map of Juan de la Cosa, is 

 preserved. To the great river thus dis- 

 located to the southward was applied the 

 name of 'Maranhom' in the 1527 map, and 

 that of 'Maranon' in that of 1529, the 

 first form being very suggestive of a Por- 

 tuguese origin. In both these maps the 

 gulf of Maranhao with its characteristic 

 bifid inner-extremity is figured in its proper 

 position with the name of ' Furna. ' 



In 1531, according to the investigations 

 of Varnhagen ('Historia geral do Brazil,' 

 2d ed., I., p. 117) Diogo Leite, a Portuguese 

 official, explored the coast between Pernam- 

 buco and the southern mouth of the Ama- 

 zonas, and it is probable that to this ex- 

 plorer should be attribiited the new type of 

 map which, as we have already seen, ap- 

 peared between the years of 1529 and 1534. 

 Whoever may have been the author of this 

 work, it is certain that between these dates 

 an entirely new and very meritorious topo- 

 graphical survey of this part of the coast 



was made, and by a person who from pre- 

 vious maps took only the nomenclature of 

 that of Maiollo, or of some other one very 

 similar to it. It is equally certain that this 

 explorer remained long enough in the 

 vicinity of Maranhao to recognize and rep- 

 resent in a truly admirable manner its lead- 

 ing topographical features and to learn va- 

 rious indigenous denominations; or, which 

 is more probable, a person was here met 

 with who through long residence was able 

 to furnish this information. The 'Pero 

 Galego' mentioned by Estevao Frees, if 

 still alive, would be in these conditions, and 

 the hypothesis is not a very risky one that 

 he was the informant. Whoever it may 

 have been, somebody before 1534 furnished 

 the cartographers* with elements for rep- 

 resenting the hydrographic basin of ]\Iar- 

 anhao in a manner that presents a notable 

 contrast with the grotesque representations 

 of those of the River Plate and Amazonas 

 based on the exploration of a Sebastian 

 Cabot and of an Orellana. 



The unfortunate attempt of Ayres da 

 Cunha in 1536-38 to found a colony in 

 Maranhao left no traces in the cartography 

 of the region, unless the name 'Ascencao' 

 in the maps of Diogo Homen and Desceliers 

 is an interpolation in their prototype of a 

 denomination given by this expedition. In 

 the written history, however, the name 

 given to the ephemeral settlement is 'Naz- 

 areth. ' 



About 1560 the cartographers commenced 

 to attempt a representation of the interior of 

 the continent, supplying the lack of definite 

 data by flights of the imagination. Diego 

 Gutierrez figured a great river uniting, 

 across the continent. Lake Titicaca with the 

 gulf of Maranhao and thus duplicating the 



* Some of the maps made after this expedition 

 diflfer somewhat in the drawing and in some of 

 the names, from the earliest one preserved (that 

 of Gaspar Viegas of 1.534), and it is probable that 

 there was another Portuguese prototype that has 

 not come down to us. 



