OF THE NORTH PACIFIC 29

Aransu, Satil and Mexicana, from San Blas with
Lieutenant Jacinto Caamano in command. He sailed
Northward exploring the various harbours and bays of
the coast to the 56th parallel of latitude. He named
Isle de Langara at the North-West vicinity of the group,
a name which survives to-day. He also visited Virago
Sound and Massett, which he named Estrada and
Mazaredo. Massett may be a corruption or shortening
of Mazaredo, as the natives have no distinct word for
Massett in their language, their name for the place being
Uttewas; or it may, as previously suggested, be a
contraction of Mynhassett.

The first British sloop of war to visit these waters was
the Discovery, accompanied by the armed tender
Chatham, under the command of the famous Captain
Vancouver in 1792. He spent three years in these
waters exploring and surveying. In 1793 he devoted
his attention to the West coast, charting the bays and
harbours. He was responsible for many of the present-
day names for the points and harbours along the coast
of the islands, for instance, Point North (North Island),
Point Frederick (Frederick Island), Englefield Bay,
Cape Henry, Point Buck, Cartwright Sound and Point
Hunter. In his diary he gave a list of twenty vessels
that were engaged during the year 1792 in the fur trade,
and doubtless most of these visited the Queen Charlotte
Islands.

In 1852 the Hudson Bay Company, having heard that
gold was discovered on these islands, dispatched the
ship Una, under Captain Mitchell, to investigate this
matter. On his arrival at Skidegate he found that the
gold was obtained in Port Kuper or Gold Harbour on
the West coast. The occurrence, however, proved to be
only a small vein which soon petered out. This dis-
covery produced the first gold boom in British