THE PACIFIC OCEAN HISTORICAL NOTES Both the Atlantic and Indian Oceans were partially known at a very early period to the adventurous voyagers of Phcenicia, but for hundreds of years after the decline of their extensive commerce, the great nations that dwelt on the borders of the Mediterranean knew nothing of the vast ex panse of the Pacific, which seems to have been first approached from Europe by land, by missionaries to China or Cathay. An Arab merchant., Sulaiman, in the middle of the ninth century, first reached China by sea. It was not until 1291 that an European, Marco Polo, crossed the China Sea and sailed through the Straits of Malacca into the Indian Ocean. Four years later he returned to Europe and pub lished an account of his travels, upon which several European travellers set out for the East, and thus the western shores of the Pacific were gradually explored early in the fourteenth century, nearly 200 years before its eastern shores were first seen by Balbao from the highlands of Panama, or Magellan entered it from the Atlantic through the straits that still bear , his name. Vasco de Gams opened the way for the exploration of the western Pacific when in 1497 he doubled the Cape of Good Hope, and sailed across the Indian Ocean to Calicut. Early in the sixteenth century the great Albu querque extended the Portuguese settlements beyond Malacca, and established commercial relations with the Sunda Islands and even China on the north, and New Guinea on the south. Balbao had, in 1513, gazed on the vast expanse of the eastern Pacific from the heights of Panama at about the same time that Sinew, or Serrano, coasted the great ocean beyond the Moluccas or Spice Islands on the west. As the Portu guese fleets commanded the route round the Cape of Good Hope, Magellan determined to open up for the vessels of Spain another route round Cape Horn. With that view he sailed from Spain with five ships in 1519, and in October in the following year he passed through the channel now called after him, Magellan Straits, and sailed boldly across the unknown expanse of the " Oceano Pacifico," and finally sighted the Ladrones. Pressing on, he reached the Philip pines in April 1521, where he was murdered. The expe dition, however, reached the Moluccas, and in September 1522 the few survivors in the " Vittoria" landed on the coast of Spain, being thus the first to circumnavigate the globe.
The conquest of Mexico by Cortes was speedily fol lowed by the exploration of the western shores of America, and Spanish vessels sailed along the coast from California to Peru, which ultimately led to the conquest of the latter coun try—then the nucleus of the extensive empire of the Incas— by a band of adventurers under Pizarro. While the Spaniards
were thus engaged in reducing the native states of Central and South America under their sway, the Portuguese were extending their commerce to China, Japan, and contiguous islands. The increasing importance of the East Indian trade stimulated further research for independent routes to the Pacific from Europe ; and as Magellan's route, by way of Cape Horn, was very long, European navigators turned their attention to the north, and thus commenced that long-futile series of expeditions to discover either a north-east passage round the north coast of Asia, or a north-west passage through the Archipelago north of North America. Particulars of the various attempts made in both these directions will be given in the historical notice of the Arctic Ocean, so that we shall not dwell on them here.
The English admiral, Drake, having seen the Pacific, like Balbao, from the mountains of Panama, resolved to sail upon it, and in 1577 his squadron was busy destroying and plundering the Spanish settlements from Chili to livico. Drake appears to have sailed as far north as the modem San Francisco, whence he crossed the ocean to the Spice Islands, and thence sailed home by way of the Cape of Good Hope. The Pacific began now to be more thoroughly explored, and one by one the great island groups scattered over its broad ex panse were discovered and named. Thus Mendana, in 1567, discovered the islands which he named Solomon Islands; and in the year following the Marquesas were first seen. At the end of the sixteenth century the northern coast of Australia became known, and in the years 1619-1627 the eastern and western coasts of the island-continent were explored by Dutch navigators ; and in 1642 Tasman discovered Van Land—since called Tasmania—and New Zealand. In 1686, Easter Island was discovered by Roggewein; and, thirteen years later, the island of New Britain, and the straits which separate it from New Guinea, were explored by Dampier. On the north, Behring explored the strait that bears his name, and discovered the chain of the Aleutian Island& Anson's expedition to the Pacific, in 1739, resulted in the discovery of several small islands ; and Vancouver, in 1791, found the island now called after him.