PACIFIC AND BEERING'S STRAIT. 217 



harpoons, lances, a small cannon, cast metal boilers, c ^ Pi 

 &c. &c, and a leaden pump which had a crown and v — -v~ 

 the date 1790 raised upon it. All the iron-work 18 26. 

 was much corroded, and must have been a consider- 

 able time exposed to the action of the sea and air, 

 but it was not overgrown in the least by the coral. 

 Two of these anchors weighed about a ton each ; the 

 other was a stream anchor, and with one of the bow- 

 ers, was at the break of the sea ; the other bower, 

 together with the boiler, and all the before-men- 

 tioned materials, were lying about two hundred 

 yards from it. The situation in which they were 

 found, the size of the anchors, the harpoons, staves, 

 &c. and the date of the pump, render it highly pro- 

 bable that they belonged to the Matilda, a whaler 

 which was wrecked in 1792, in the night-time, upon 

 a reef of coral rocks, in latitude 22° S., and longitude 

 138° 34' W. But whether they had been washed 

 up there by some extraordinarily high tide and sea, 

 or the reef had since grown upward, and raised them 

 beyond the present reach of the waves, we could not 

 decide : the former is most probable ; though it is 

 evident, if the above-mentioned remains be those of 

 the Matilda, of which there can be very little doubt, 

 that a considerable alteration has taken place in the 

 island, as the crew of that vessel describe themselves 

 to have been lost on a reef of rocks, whereas the 

 island on which these anchors are lying extends 

 fourteen miles in length, and has one of its sides 

 covered nearly the whole of the way with high trees, 

 which, from the spot where the vessel was wrecked, 

 are very conspicuous, and could not fail to be seen 

 by persons in the situation of her crew. 



The island differs from the other coral formations 



