The meaning of this may be that he went four degrees beyond Ulloa's false reckoning, or actually two degrees above the shoals where Ulloa turned back.

This would take him to the 34th parallel, and would coincide with his eighty-five leagues, and also with the position of the first mountains met with in going up the river, the Chocolate range.

Alarcon was not so inexperienced that he would have represented eighty-five leagues on the course of the river as equalling four degrees of latitude.

Had he gone to the 36th degree he would have passed through Black Canyon, and this is so extraordinary a feature that he could not have failed to note it specially.

When Alarcon arrived at the ships again, he evidently had strong reason for abandoning his intention of returning for another attempt to communicate with Coronado, and he set sail for home.