Verrazano did not enter Massachusetts Bay. But in the spring of 1525 a Spaniard, Estevan Gomez, cruised for two months on the New England coast. While he left no narrative of his voyage, “Tierra de Estevan Gomez” appeared immediately on Spanish maps of the period, notably that of Ribero, 1529. An indentation of the bay shore behind his “Cabo de Arenas” sufficiently suggests Plymouth Harbor and Cape Cod Bay to make one speculate whether this is not in fact the first record of a visit to Plymouth, ninety-five years before the landing of the Pilgrims. What has been interpreted as Boston Harbor on this Ribero map bears the name “Bay of St. Christoval,” but the indentation that suggests Plymouth remains nameless. It seems likely that Estevan Gomez was the discoverer of Plymouth in 1525. After these first Massachusetts discoveries, there follows a period of seventy-five years of documentary obscurity so far as Massachusetts is concerned. Maritime activities about Newfoundland, the St. Lawrence River, and Nova Scotia steadily grew. Cartier founded, and then had to abandon, his French colony at Quebec. Jehan Allefonsce, one of his shipmasters, was blown southward from the Newfoundland banks in 1542, into “a great bay in latitude 42°,” but Massachusetts Bay is not mentioned during the rest of the century. Both French and English built up an increasing fur trade on the Maine coast, especially about the Penobscot and in the Bay of Fundy. Fishermen from all the maritime nations of Europe crowded in increasing numbers to the Newfoundland banks, carrying back apparently inexhaustible supplies of codfish to feed Catholic Europe in the season of Lent. By 1578 as many as 350 fishing vessels were making the transatlantic voyage, usually twice each year. Since fishermen and fur traders rarely left written records, we can only assume that with the increased volume of shipping, some of these vessels found their way to Massachusetts shores. But we have no documentary evidence of their visits. [Illustration: TIERA DE AYLLON TIERA DE ESTEVA GOMEZ TIERA NOVA: DE CORTEREAI Map of the North American Coast, a portion of the World Map made by Diego Ribero in 1529, showing the results of the explorations of Estevan Gomez in 1525 Reproduced from the Map Collection, Yale University Library]