Volume 1

The voyages of Pedro Fernandez de Quiros, 1595-1606 / translated and edited by Sir Clements Markham.

  • Queirós, Pedro Fernandes de, -1615.
Date:
1904
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The voyages of Pedro Fernandez de Quiros, 1595-1606 / translated and edited by Sir Clements Markham. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    The ideas of Quiros respecting an Antarctic continent were, no doubt, fixed in his mind by seeing the coast-lines delineated by the map-makers of his time. It, therefore, becomes very interesting to trace this southern coast-line on the principal maps from the time of Ortelius down to the last map that showed it before Captain Cook’s second voyage finally disproved its existence. Mr. Basil Soulsby has kindly prepared a note on this subject, which follows the Introduction. The voyage of Quiros was the first event in the story of Antarctic enterprise. Its object was the discovery of the Southern Continent and the annexation of the South Pole. It was the dream of an enthusiast. It was a failure, but not altogether a barren failure. Others of another nation were to follow up his idea. He fell, worried to death by Committees. But he opened the glorious record of Antarctic discovery. Captain Cook made known the Southern Continent imagined by Quiros, and actually seen by Torres. Captain Cook first crossed the Antarctic circle, and searched all round it for the supposed coast¬ lines of Quiros. Great communities were to arise in the Southern Continent, in Australia and New Zealand, but not of Spanish race. The achievements of the peoples of the Iberian peninsula were of vast importance to the world ; but they came to an end with the voyage of Quiros. The mantle of discovery fell on other shoulders. James Ross followed Cook in realising the dream of Quiros ; and now we recognise Robert Falcon Scott as the greatest and most successful of Antarctic discoverers. Jordan. In 1618 he settled at Madrid. Then appeared his Aurora de Cristo and Hispalica. In the Comedias Escojidas (4to, Madrid, 1682-1704) there are eleven plays of Belmonte, including the Re?iegade of Valladolid,, and God the Best Guardian. Ticknor mentions them as a singular mixture of what is sacred and what is profane (Ticknods Spanish Literature, vol. ii, p. 300).