86 VOYAGE OF JUAN DE FUCA. [1592 



canoes, as far as the 79th degree, where the land was seen, " still 

 trending north, and the ice rested on the land." He was also as- 

 sured " that there was no communication out of the Atlantic Sea by 

 Davis's Strait ; for the natives had conducted one of his seamen to 

 the head of Davis's Strait, which terminated in a fresh lake, of about 

 thirty miles in circumference, in the 80th degree of north latitude ; 

 and there were prodigious mountains north of it." These accounts, 

 added to his own observations, led Admiral Fonte to conclude " that 

 there was no passage into the South Sea by what they call the north- 

 west passage ; " and he accordingly returned, with his vessels, 

 through the Pacific, to Peru. 



Such are the principal circumstances related in the account of 

 Admiral Fonte's voyage, which was, for some time after its appear- 

 ance, received as true, and copied into all works on Northern 

 America. In 1750, a French translation of the account, with a 

 chart drawn from it, and a memoir, in support of its correctness, 

 were presented to the Academy of Sciences of Paris by Messrs. 

 Delisle and Buache, in consequence of which, the various Spanish 

 repositories of papers respecting America were carefully examined, 

 in search of information on the subject ; and, in all the voyages of 

 discovery along the north-west coasts of the continent, during 

 the last century, endeavors were made to discover the mouth of the 

 Rio de los Reyes. These labors, however, were vain. The exist- 

 ence of a number of islands near the position assigned to the 

 Archipelago of St. Lazarus, and of a large river, (the StiJcine,) 

 entering the ocean near the 56th parallel, indeed, seems to favor 

 the supposition that some voyage, of which we have no record, 

 may have been made to that part of the Pacific before 1708 ; but 

 the rivers and lakes through which Fonte was said to have passed — 

 his town of Conasset — and his Boston ship — are now generally 

 believed to have all emanated from the brain of James Petiver, a 

 naturalist of some eminence, and one of the chief contributors to 

 the Monthly Miscellany. 



The account of the voyage and discoveries of Juan de Fuca, on 

 the north-western side of America, in 1592, was, for a long time, 

 considered as less worthy of credit than those above noticed. More 

 recent examinations in that part of the world have, however, caused 

 it to be removed from the class of fictions ; although it is certainly 

 erroneous as regards the principal circumstance related. All the 

 information respecting this voyage is derived from "A Note made by 

 Michael Lock, the elder, touching the Strait of Sea commonly called 



