principal discovery in the New World was that of the potato, which he
introduced into England.

Not until Drake's voyage was completed was the vast extent of the North
American continent even suspected, although its interior had been
explored in many directions. Hernando de Soto, with an experience gained
with Pizarro in the conquest of Peru, and succeeding Ponce de Leon in
the governorship of Florida, marched with a great expedition through
what is now South Carolina, Tennessee and Georgia, and came out, at
last, upon the Mississippi, only to find burial beneath its waters,
while the tattered remnant of his force staggered back to Mexico.

Francisco de Coronado, marching northward from Mexico, in search of the
fabled Seven Cities of Cibola, found only the squalid villages of the
Zuni Indians, after stumbling on the Grand Canyon of the Colorado, and
marching as far north as the southern line of Kansas. Jacques Cartier,
following another will-o'-the-wisp to the north, and searching for the
storied city of Norembega, supposed to exist somewhere in the wilderness
south of Cape Breton, found it not, indeed, but laid the foundations for
the great empire which France was to establish along the St. Lawrence.

And Henry Hudson, in the little Half-Moon, chartered by a company of
thrifty Dutchmen to search for the northwest passage, blundered instead
upon the mighty river which bears his name, explored it as far north as
the present city of Albany, and paved the way for that picturesque
Dutch settlement which grew into the greatest city of the New World. He
did more than that, for, persevering in the search and sailing far to
the north, he came, at last, into the great bay also named for him,
where tragic fate lay waiting. For there, in that icy fastness of the
north, his mutinous crew bound him, set him adrift in a small boat, and