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the year 1513, when Balboa discovered the Pacific Ocean at Panama, the navigators of Spain, and of every rival naval power which arose for the following two hundred and seventy-nine years, were searching for some strait, or river, which should furnish water communication between the two great oceans which border the American continent. The Strait of Magellan, discovered soon after the Pacific, afforded a way by which vessels could enter this ocean from the western side of the Atlantic; but it was far to the south, crooked, and dangerous. After the discovery by the English buccaneer, Drake, of the passage around Cape Horn, the search was continued with redoubled interest. Not only the Spanish and Portuguese entered into it; but the English, who had found the great inland sea of Hudson's Bay penetrating the continent toward the west, endeavored, by offering prizes, to stimulate the zeal of navigators in looking for the North-west Passage.

A rumor continued to circulate through the world, vague, mystical, and romantic, of half discoveries by