Notes on the earliest discoveries in America. 327 
kinsman, Saavedra, had vast schemes for opening communica- 
tion, by means of a ship canal or Roman road, for the transpor- 
tation of merchandise brought hither from the Moluccas and 
other parts of the East for passage or transhipment to Spain. 
How unexpectedly this rational scheme was thwarted will ap- 
pear farther on. 
en cestieiatiniaiaa uaainemaaitiiaiaiae: 
2 . ss , sc ‘i ‘ oe 
1018, carrying the same ideal continent up to lat. 46°, ending 
with Cape Mar del Oceano, just above Ruysch’s Cape Helicon 
(probably named from the rumored fountains of Florida). Pe- 
search lay between 35° and 45°, or between Norfolk and Cape 
Sable, where, as Peter Martyr expresses it, “he found pleasant 
and profitable countries agreeable with our parallels.” Very 
little is known about this unimportant expedition, and no au- 
thentic maps or papers have come down to us. The contempo- 
rary historians give no prominence to it, and very few facts about 
t 
it. Indeed from what is resent known, it is very difficult 
to tell whether Gomez sailed up or down the coast, or both, or 
at what points he touc ittle information did he bring 
results of the voyage had not been so enormously exaggerated 
Y recent writers. 
caravel of fifty tons, with perhaps a dozen men, in the dead of 
r, from Carats in lat. 43°, the government contribution 
law of Spain and the positive instructions of the Emperor, and 
ay have the whole story. Oviedo, writing in 1526, says that 
€ sailed to the northern and found a great part of land 
i taking his course 
