1577-78. Frobisher.
Frobisher's voyage of 1576 was the true beginning of the arctic search for a northwest passage, all earlier efforts having been in lower latitudes. He had sought, by leaving Greenland on the right, to pass north of the great American barrier, and thus reach the land of spices. He congratulated himself on having found the long-desired strait, when, naming it for himself, he returned to England. Frobisher attempted to add to these earlier discoveries by a voyage the next year, 1577, but he made exploration secondary to mining for gold, and not much was done. A third voyage in 1578 brought him into Hudson's Straits, which he entered with the hope of finding it the channel to Cathay. But in all his voyages Frobisher only crossed the threshold of the arctic north.
ORTELIUS, 1570.
SEBASTIAN CABOT.
The Zeni influence.
It was one of the results of Frobisher's voyages that they served to implant in the minds of the cartographers of the northern waters the notions of the Zeni geography, and aided to give those notions a new lease of favor. It is conjectured that Frobisher had the Zeni map with him, or its counterpart in one of the recent Ptolemies. This map had placed the point of Greenland under 66° instead of 61°, and under the last latitude this map had shown the southern coast of its insular Frisland. Therefore, when Frobisher saw land under 61°, which was in fact Greenland, he supposed it to be Frisland, and thus the maps after him became confused. A like mischance befell Davis, a little later. When this navigator found Greenland in 61°, he supposed it an island south of Greenland, which he called "Desolation," and the fancy grew up that Frobisher's route must have gone north of this island and between it and Greenland, and so we have in later maps this other misplacement of discoveries.
