GEOGRAPHICAL MEMOIR. 273 
branch, (Admiralty Inlet,) and that such a navigator seeing that Admiralty Inlet ran directly 
south, thought it might be the northern part of the Gulf of California, and that in this manner 
the report and idea originated that the whole of California was an island. This is all possible, 
but there is no authentic proof of it whatever. The first navigator whose tracks can be followed 
with the sure light of history did not reach the latitude of De Fuca strait; Ferrelo Cabrillo, 
(1543,) Viscaine, (1603,) and Aquila reached about forty-three north latitude as their northern 
limit. 
Drake approached nearest to the strait; in 1579 he returned from forty-eight degrees north 
latitude. x 
The first of the modern northwest coast explorers, from 1774 to 1787, all passed the latitude 
of the strait, but did not see it, probably, because its entrance is somewhat hidden by the 
appearance of a large bay between the west shore of Washington Territory and the southwest 
shore of Vancouver’s island which stand toward each other at an angle of about 120°, in the 
interior corner of which the strait enters. 
Perez, 1774, passed the mouth of the strait at a distance of sixty nautical miles, sailing 
from California directly to Vancouver’s island (to Nootka Sound.) 
Bodega and Quadra, 1715, approached this strait as near as Drake, іп 48° north latitude, 
where they saw the coast near Destruction island. But from there they, also, passed the mouth 
of the strait without seeing it, and sailed directly to the coast of Vancouver’s island. It is 
true one of their pilots, Martinez, thought afterwards that he remembered to have seen the 
mouth of the cape on this occasion, but this is not proved. 
Cook, 1778, passed this strait, like Perez, at a distance of sixty nautical miles, from northern 
California to Nootka Sound. 
La Perouse, 1786, came very near to the entrance of the strait, and discovered there a deep 
sea bank, but probably cloudy weather prevented him from discovering the strait. He has, 
however, on his maps here détroit soup çonné, (a suspicion of а strait,) if this is not an addition 
of the editors of his map. 
Captain Berkely, the commander of a fur trading expedition, who explored the inlets and 
channels of Vancouver's Island, 1787, to the south of Nootka Sound, for the fur trade with the 
Indians, was the first who, undoubtedly, not only saw the strait, but also crossed over its 
mouth. He unhappily published no report and chart of this discovery, but made, however, 
some communication about it to his countryman, Captain Meares, of the English Fur Trading 
Company, to whom he, also, seems to have suggested the idea that this might be the famous 
De Fuca strait of the old chart. | 
Meares, following the track of Berkely, visited this whole region, and also the strait again 
іп the year 1788; he explored, also, the interior strait a little further, sending a boat, under 
the command of his mate, Robert Duffin, into it. 
Very soon after Meares, in August, 1788, Captain Charles Duncan arrived at the mouth, and 
made a sketch of it, in which, however, only the very entrance in the vicinity of Cape Claaset 
` ог Flattery is laid down, with some degree of minuteness. j 
All the interior part of the strait, for about thirty miles eastward, is laid down on this chart 
with uncertain outlines, as if the shores had been seen from a distance. 
This chart by Duncan was the first special chart ever published of the strait. 
35 8 7 
