of in the following summary manner: "After having remained here," (that is, at or near Albemarle,) "three days riding at anchor on the coast, as we could find no harbor, we determined to depart and coast along the shore to the northeast, keeping sail on the vessel ONLY BY DAY, and coming to anchor by night. After proceeding one hundred leagues we found a VERY PLEASANT SITUATION AMONG SOME STEEP HILLS, THROUGH WHICH A VERY LARGE RIVER, DEEP AT ITS MOUTH, FORCED ITS WAY TO THE SEA." There can be no mistake in regard to the portion of the coast here intended. Upon leaving this river they found that the coast stretched, it is stated, as will presently appear, in an EASTERLY direction. A stream coming from the hills, its situation at the bend of the coast, its latitude as fixed by that of the port which, after leaving it, they found in nearly the same parallel and which is placed in 41 Degrees 40', all point distinctly to the embouchure of the Hudson at the highlands of Navesink as the termination of the hundred leagues. Within this distance the Chesapeake empties into the sea. The explorers were not only in search of a harbor for the purpose of recruiting, but they were seeking, as the great end of the voyage, a passage to Cathay, rendering, therefore, every opening in the coast an object of peculiar interest and importance. They were sailing with extreme caution and observation, in the day-time only, and constantly in sight of land. The bay of the Chesapeake is the most accessible and capacious on the coast of the United States. It presents an opening into the sea of twelve miles from cape to cape, having a broad and deep channel through which the largest ships of modern times, twenty times or more the tonnage of the Dauphiny, may enter and find inside of Cape Henry ample and safe anchorage. [Footnote: Blunt's American Coast Pilot, p. 340.] That an actual explorer could not have failed to have discovered this bay and found a secure harbor at that time, is shown by the account of the expedition, which the Adelantado, Pedro Menendes, of infamous memory, despatched under the command of Pedro Menendez Marquez, for the survey of this coast in 1573; when the means and facilities of navigators for exploration were not different from what existed at the date of the Verrazzano voyage. Menendez Marquez was the first to enter the Chesapeake after Gomez, who gave it the name of the bay of Santa Maria. [Footnote: This name occurs on the map of Ribero on this part of the coast, which establishes its application by Gomez; but its position is evidently misplaced and carried too far south.] Barcia thus summarizes the result of the expedition, so far as it relates to this bay.