1827. 



PACIFIC AND BEERING'S STRAIT. 237 



be seen when abreast of them. Neither of them are chap 

 navigable by shipping; the northern, on account of 

 rocks which render it impassable even by boats, and jZx 

 the other on account of rapid tides and eddies, which, 

 as there is no anchoring ground, would, most likely, 

 drift a ship upon the rocks. The northern island I 

 named Stapleton, and the centre Buckland, in com- 

 pliment to the Professor of Geology at Oxford. At 

 the south-west angle of Buckland Island there is a 

 sandy bay, in which ships will find good anchorage ; 

 but they must be careful in bringing up to avoid being 

 carried out of soundings by the current. I named 

 it Walker's Bay, after Mr. Walker of the Hydro- 

 graphical Office. The southern cluster is evidently 

 that in which a whale ship commanded by Mr. Coffin 

 anchored in 1823, who was the first to communicate 

 its position to this country, and who bestowed his own 

 name upon the port. As the cluster was, however, 

 left without any distinguishing appellation, I named it 

 after Francis Baily, Esq. late President of the Astro- 

 nomical Society. 



These clusters of islands correspond so well with a 

 group named Yslas del Arzobispo in a work pu])lished 

 many years ago in Manilla, entitled Navigavion Espe- 

 culativa y Pratica, that I have retained the name, in 

 addition to that of Bonin Islands ; as it is extremely 

 dovibtful, from the Japanese accounts of Bonin-sima, 

 whether there are not other islands in the vicinity, to 

 which the latter name is not more applicable. In 

 these accounts, published by M. Klaporth in his Me- 

 nioire sur la Chine, and by M. Abel Remusat in the 

 Journal des Savans for September, 1817, it is said, 

 that the islands of Bonin-sima, or Mou-nin-sima, con- 

 sist of eighty-nine islands ; of which two are large, 



