F. GEOGRAPHY. 169 



and partly for the purpose of watching with jealous eye the 

 anticipated movements on the part of the Australians and 

 Germans in establishing colonies in the island. HCjJime, 

 1872,209. 



AMERICAN EXPLORATIONS IN THE PACIFIC. 



An editorial in the New York Herald, written evidently by 

 one who has excellent opportunities of knowing, furnishes 

 some indication of the plans of the Navy Department in car- 

 rying out the appropriation of Congress directing a system- 

 atic survey of the waters of the Pacific Ocean. The necessity 

 of this has been urged upon Congress for many years by the 

 department, in view of the increasing interests of American 

 commerce, and of the number of dangerous islands and reefs 

 that require a careful survey and record. 



Commodore Wyman, Chief of the Hydrographic Office, is 

 now engaged in planning the work, and it is understood 

 that the first effort will be to survey that part of the Pacific 

 running from the coast of Lower California to the northwest- 

 ern boundaries of the United States, off Alaska and along the 

 Aleutian group of islands, thence southward to the Sandwich 

 Islands. Included in this programme will be the exploration 

 of the Sargasso Sea lying to the westward of the California 

 coast, and also that of the great ocean current known as the 

 Kuro Siwo, to which the north coast of America owes so much 

 of the mildness of its temperature. 



After the general survey of the North Pacific it is proposed 

 that the expedition shall return to Honolulu, and thence care- 

 fully examine the entire breadth of the ocean, taking belts of 

 latitude of five degrees at a time, and extending the work 

 from the fortieth degree of latitude north to the fortieth de- 

 gree of south latitude. It is probable that at least ten years 

 will be required for the labor in question, and for which ad- 

 ditional appropriations will be needed. We trust that the 

 authorities having this matter in charge will include in the 

 programme of operations a thorough investigation into the 

 natural history as well as the physics of the deeper portions 

 of the Pacific. Within the last five or ten years much atten- 

 tion has been directed to these subjects, and the brilliant 

 results obtained by the British, German, Swedish, Russian, 

 and other government vessels have tended to upset previous 



H 



