| Hernando De Alarcon |
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| CATEGORIES ABOUT HERNANDO DE ALARCóN | |
| history of baja california | |
| alarcón, hernando de | |
| explorers of north america | |
| spanish explorers and conquistadores | |
| SHOPPER'S DELIGHT | |
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Little is known about Alarcón's life outside of his expedition in New Spain . He set sail on May 9 , 1540 with orders from the Spanish Viceroy Antonio De Mendoza to await at a certain point on the coast the arrival of an expedition by land under the command of Coronado. He sailed into the Gulf Of California , which had been explored the previous summer by Francisco De Ulloa . He made a careful survey of the coast, and on 26 September ascended the Colorado (then called the Rio del Tizon or Rio de Buena Guia) for 85 Spanish miles, being the first European to do so. The meeting with Coronado was not effected, however, although Alarcón reached the appointed place and left letters, which were soon afterwards found by Melchior Diaz , another explorer. Alarcón was the first to determine with certainty that Baja California was a peninsula and not an island, as had been supposed. Upon his return to New Spain in 1541 he constructed a more accurate Map of California depicting it correctly as a peninsula. Nevertheless, since the new cartographic information went unpublished, the notion of the Island Of California persisted on many European maps well into the 18th Century . |