The discovery of the island of Santa Cruz suggested to the mind of Quiros that the great southern continent was at length discovered, and in two memoirs addressed by him to Don L. de Velasco, viceroy of Peru, we meet with the first detailed argument upon this great geographical question, which, though he himself was not destined to demonstrate it by an actual discovery, may nevertheless be said to have been indirectly brought to a solution through his instrumentality. It is true that it is difficult in dealing with these vague surmises respecting the existence of a southern continent to draw distinctions between Australia itself and the great continent discovered in the present century, some twenty or thirty degrees to the south of that vast island. It has been already stated, p. xxxi, that Dalrymple, nearly two centuries later, earnestly advocated the same cause as De Quiros had done, and speaking of that navigator he says: “The _discovery_ of the southern continent, _whenever_ and by _whomsoever_ it may be completely effected, is in _justice_ due to this _immortal_ name.” It should be premised that there are, in fact, three points of ambiguity in connexion with the name of that navigator, which it is well at once to state, as they might mislead the judgment of the superficial reader of the history of navigation of that period as to his connexion with the discovery of Australia. In the first place, though generally reputed to be a Spaniard, he is described by Nicolas Antonio, the author of the _Bibliotheca Hispana_, himself a Spaniard, and not unwilling, it may be supposed, to claim so distinguished a navigator for his countryman, as “Lusitanus. Eborensis, ut aiunt Lusitani” (a Portuguese, stated by the Portuguese to be a native of Evora), and the style of his writings bears out the supposition. Secondly, Antonio de Ulloa, in his _Resumen_, p. 119, quotes from an account of the voyage of Quiros, said to be given in the _Historia de la Religion Serafica of Diego de Cordova_ (a work which the editor has not met with), the discovery of a large island in _twenty-eight degrees_ south latitude, which latitude is farther south than Quiros or his companions are otherwise known to have made in any voyage. Thirdly, the printed memoirs of Quiros bear the title of Terra Australis Incognita, while the southern Tierra Austral, discovered by Quiros himself, and surnamed by him “del Espiritu Santo,” is none other than the “New Hebrides” of the maps of the present day.