



CHAPTER XII. 

 The Influence of the older Maps on låter Exploration. Conclusion. 



The Anson chart soon obtained a wide circulation; and the picture which it ga ve 

 of the northern part of the Pacific Ocean was accepted by all the geographers of the time. 



Captain Cook's general chart (Fig. 1) shows how, on the basis of this chart, they 

 pictured to themselves the position of the islands east of Hawaii. We there see, besides 

 the Los Monges group, Roca Partida and the other islands belonging to the Revilla Gigedo 

 Archipelago placed at far too great a distance from the mainland of America, a position 

 which ultimately originates in Juan Gaytan's incorrect distance-statements, so far back 

 as the year 1542. The correct position of these islands was determined by Captain James 

 Colnett in 1793, in which determination he was partly guided by the Spanish manuscript 

 chart which he had acquired at San Bias in Mexico, 1 and which seems to ha ve been more 

 correct, as regards these islands, than the other Spanish charts known in Europé. We 

 also see on Captain Cook's chart S a Maria la Gorta, which is undoubtedly identical with 

 Doha Maria Lajara, an island that we have several times found mentioned in early 

 narratives of voyages, although always with a more or less definitely expressed doubt as 

 to its existence. 2 La Pérouse says that he had found "neither the history nor the romance 

 of this island", and that, in October 1786, he sought in vain for it in a place indicated by 

 his Spanish chart 45' more to the northward and 4° more to the westward than on the 

 Anson chart. 3 We can safely maintain that this island is nothing but a product of the 

 imagination, which was connected with some tragic occurrence during the voyage 

 of a galleon, whether the unknown Doiia Maria la Jara died on board, or had sought her 

 own death in the waves. 4 Captain Portlock sought for this island with the same small 

 amount of success as La Pérouse: on 2 November 1786 he ran directly över the spöt 

 where S. Maria La Gorta should be situated according to Cook's chart. Captain William 



1 Colnett, A Voyaye to the South Atlantic and round Cape Horn into the Pacific Ocean. Lond. 

 1798, p. 88. 



2 See above, pp. 93, 98, 101, 120. 



3 Voyage de La Pérouse, II, p. 106. 



4 A Captain Juan de la Jara is mentioned as takiug part in an expedition to Mindanao in 1596. 

 Colin, Labor Evangelica, II, p. 30; Navarrete, Bibliotcca Maritima. I, p. 152. 



