Competent officers were sent out from Spain for the purpose, and no expense was spared to execute the survey as completely as possible. The command was intrusted to Don Juan de la Piedra, who sailed from Monte Video on this service on the 15th December, 1778. Running down the coast, on the 7th January he entered the great bay, then called Bahia Sin-fondo, or San Matthias' Bay, but now more generally known under the name of San Antonio, at the bottom of which, in latitude 42° 13´, he discovered the entrance of a noble harbour, which he named San Joseph's. Piedra passed three months in examining the shores of this great gulf and the peninsula which bounds it, and so impressed was he with its capabilities that, without proceeding further, he left an officer and part of his men to build a fort there, and returned himself to the River Plate to give an account of his discovery. According to his report, indeed, it appeared on many grounds to offer a most eligible site for a new settlement. The port itself was said to be deep and commodious, affording anchorage for ships of any size, whilst its situation seemed particularly convenient not only for facilitating the further exploration of the great rivers Negro and Colorado, which empty themselves a little to the northward of it, but for securing more or less the entrance of those rivers against any sudden surprise by the enemies of Spain, a point to which great importance was attached in the instructions of the surveying officers, in consequence of the statements made by Falkner as to the possibility of passing up them into the very heart of the Spanish possessions. The vast number of whales and seals which were seen in its neighbourhood, moreover, held out the promise of its becoming a station whence to carry on those fisheries which the Spanish Government of the day were so anxious to establish[19]; whilst the extensive salt deposits in several parts of the peninsula promised an inexhaustible supply of an article of the first necessity in Buenos Ayres in curing the hides and beef. The only drawback to the situation was the apparent scarcity of fresh water, which the discoverers had great difficulty in finding in the first instance, though subsequently a sufficiency was obtained at some distance from the coast: it was, however, at all times more or less brackish, and eventually caused much sickness and suffering to the settlers. The Viceroy was dissatisfied with Piedra for returning, and superseded him, when it devolved upon Don Francisco and Antonio Viedma (the officers next in command of those sent out from Spain) to carry into execution the intentions of their Government. These brothers were long employed upon various parts of the coast of Patagonia, and collected much valuable information respecting that _terra incognita_.