Narrative of the surveying voyages of his majesty's ships Adventure and Beagle (vol.2): between the years 1826 and 1836 : describing their examination of the southern shores of South America, and the Beagles's circumnavigation of the globe

FALKLAND ISLANDS. 229 employed by the King of Portugal, sailed 600 leagues south and 150 leagues west from Cape San Agostinho (lat. 8° 20' S.) along the coast of a country then named Terra Sancte Crucis.* His account of longitude may be very erroneous, but how could his latitude have erred thirteen degrees in this his southernmost voyage ? The south shore of the Plata is low, and appears to be woody, though it is not ; the depth of water off it is moderate, and the currents are strong — all which peculiarities have been remarked on the northern coasts of the Falklands; therefore the ' description' alluded to by De Bougainville would apply equally well to the right bank of the Plata. The late Mr- Dalrymple published an extract from a chart printed at Rome, in 1508, in which it is said, that ships of Portugal dis- covered a continuation of land as far south as fifty degrees,f which did not there terminate. In that chart the name Ame- rica is not to be found. Brazil is there called Terraij: Sancte Crucis. If the Portuguese or any other people actually traced or even discovered portions of coast south of the Plata before 1512, it appears strange that so remarkable an estuary, one hundred and twenty miles across, should have been overlooked ; especially as soundings extend two hundred miles seaward of its entrance : — and that the world should have no clear record of its having been discovered prior to the voyage of Juan de Solis, in 1512. Vespucius has already robbed Columbus and his predecessor, Cabot, of the great honour of affixing their names to the New World — shall he also be tacitly permitted to claim • The name America was not given before the year 1507. (Herrera, Dec. ],7, 5.) t The Falklands are beyond fifty-one degrees of south latitude. I In 1507 (the admiral Christopher Columbus being dead), Americus Vespucius was taken into the service of the King of Spain, with the title of ' Pilote mayor,' and was employed in making charts of the new disco- veries, wliich gave him an opportunity to affix his own name to the land of South America. (Herrera, Dec. 1, 7, 5.)