By the same reasoning it is shown, that the land of the southern hemisphere is greatly stored with metals and rich in precious stones and pearls, fruits and animals; and from the discoveries and investigations which have been already made in this southern hemisphere, there has been found such fertility, so great plenty and abundance of animals, swine, oxen, and other beasts of different kinds fit for the sustenance of man as has never been seen in our Europe; also of birds and fishes of different species, and, amongst them all, those which we most value as wholesome and delicate on the shores of our own ocean; and fruits, some of which we already know, and others of different kinds, all which may well excite the greatest admiration, as has been related in detail in the treatise referred to at the beginning of this memorial. It must be observed that, although the arguments we have hitherto advanced refer to the entire southern hemisphere, yet that which we now propose to have explored, discovered, and evangelically subdued, is that part of the said hemisphere which lies in the Pacific Ocean, between the longitude of the coast of Peru, as far as the Baia de San Felipe y Santiago and the longitude which remains up to Bachan and Ternate, in which longitude the following most remarkable discoveries have already been made. The adelantado Alvaro Mendaña de Meyra first discovered New Guadalcanal, which is a very large island very near New Guinea; and some have imagined that what Mendaña called New Guadalcanal was part of New Guinea, but this is of no consequence whatever. New Guinea belongs also to the southern hemisphere, and was discovered some time before; and almost all of it has been since discovered on the outside [the northern side]. It is a country encompassed with water,[9] and, according to the greater number of those who have seen it, it is seven hundred leagues in circuit: others make it much more: we do not give a close calculation here, because what has been said is sufficient for the intention of this discourse. The rest will be said in its proper place. The middle of those great islands are in from thirteen to fourteen degrees of south latitude. The adelantado Mendaña afterwards discovered the archipelago of islands which he called the Islands of Solomon, whereof, great and small, he saw thirty-three of very fine appearance, the middle of which was, according to his account, in eleven degrees south latitude. After this he discovered, in the year 1565, the island of San Christobal, not far from the said archipelago, the middle of which was in from seven to eight degrees of south latitude. The island was one hundred and ten leagues in circuit. Subsequently, in the year ’95, the said adelantado sailed for the last time from Peru, taking with him for his chief pilot the Pedro Fernandez de Quiros, with the purpose of colonizing the island of San Christobal, and from thence attempting the discovery of the southern terra firma.