Pedro Fernandez de Quiros (redirected from Pedro Fernandes de Queirós)

Quiros, Pedro Fernandez de 

(also P. F. de Queirós). Born 1560 (?), in Evora; died 1614 (?), in Panama. Spanish navigator; Portuguese by birth.

In 1595–96, Quirós was the chief helmsman on A. de Mendaña de Neyra’s second expedition. In 1605–06 he commanded three ships of the last Spanish expedition sent in search of the mythical “southern land”—Australia (Latin Terra australis incognita, literally “unknown southern land”)—in the Pacific Ocean. Quirós discovered a number of atolls of the Tuamotu archipelago, the Duff Islands, and, south of them, the Banks Islands and the island of Espiritu Santo in the New Hebrides group. He thought that Espiritu Santo was part of the southern land.

REFERENCES

Svet, la. M. Istoriia otkrytiia i issledovaniia Avstralii i Okeanii. Moscow, 1966.
Voyages of Pedro Fernandez de Quiros, vols. 1–2. London, 1904.
Sharp, A. The Discovery of the Pacific Islands. New York-London, 1960.