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.
Antonio de Morga, cap. vi, p. 29, of De Morga's Sucesos en las Islas Filipinas, Mexico, 1609, 4to.; and Figueroa's Hechos de Don Garcia Hurtado de Mendoza, quarto Marques de Cañete, Madrid, 1613, 4to., 1. 6, p. 238.
