of old maps.  Du Val’s map (Paris, 1684) of North America, which shows California as an island, portrays the strait of Anian directly north of it, between 45 deg. and 50 deg. of latitude.  Vaugondy’s map (that of 1750 corrected), Paris, 1783, shows the strait between 50 deg. and 55 deg..  Comparing the latter with Russel’s general map of North America, 1794, the Anian strait appears to coincide with the strait between Queen Charlotte’s Island and the mainland, the modern Hecate Strait.  Vizcaino had orders to look for this strait on his voyage, and explore it.

[66] Puertobelo, now called Porto Bello, is situated on the isthmus of Panama, almost directly north of Panama—­in the old department of Panama of the United States of Colombia; but now (as the other places herein named) in the independent state of Panama—­and but little west of Aspinwall, the Atlantic terminus of the Panama Canal.  Chagre is the modern Chagres, and lies on the Atlantic side of the isthmus southwest of Porto Bello; there empties the Chagres River, which can be ascended to Cruces, which is twenty miles north of Panama, the Pacific terminus of the canal, capital of the old department of Panama, and of the present state of Panama.

[67] Diego de Soria entered the Dominican order at Ocana.  He came to the Philippines in the first mission of that order (1587), end held various dignities and official positions in the province; he also did missionary work in Cagayan and other regions of Luzon.  About 1597 he went to Spain and Rome on business of his order; and later was appointed bishop of Nueva Segovia, taking possession of that see in 1604.  He died in 1613, at Fernandina (now Vigan).  See Resena biografica, i, pp. 69-77.

[68] The reduction of silver ore by amalgamation with mercury was discovered (although mercury had been used long before for obtaining gold) by a Spanish miner in Mexico, Bartholome de Medina, in 1557.  From that time, enormous quantities of mercury have been continually required for the mining operations in the silver-producing districts of Spanish America.  Efforts were occasionally made by the Mexican viceroys to procure it in China; but “the Chinese mercury obtained from Canton and Manilla was impure, and contained a great deal of lead; and its price [1782] amounted to 80 piastres the quintal.”  See Humboldt’s account, descriptive and historical, of this use of mercury, in his New Spain (Black’s trans.), iii, pp. 250-288.

In this connection, see the interesting statement by Santiago de Vera (Vol.  VI, p. 68) that as early as 1585 the Japanese (who then had but little communication with the Spaniards) were using Chinese quicksilver in the silver mines of Japan.  Some of the Chinese mercury had been brought to Manila in 1573 (Vol.  III, p. 245), and Sande mentions (Vol.  IV. p. 54) the mines of silver and quicksilver in China.

[69] This document is simply an abridgment or summary made by Ventura del Arco from the letter of Ledesma.