Intelligence and Miscellaneous Articles. 237 



NEW SOUTH SHETLAND. 



Extracts from a letter addressed to George Rainy, Esq., of Demerara, in 

 1823, by John Hancock, M.D. 



" With respect to the new discoveries, as they are termed, towards 

 the south pole, 1 am fully persuaded that Smith's New South Shetland 

 is no other than the land discovered by Gerrard, a Dutchman, more 

 than two hundred years ago. If it be not the same continuous coast, 

 it doubtless belongs to the same Archipelago or cluster of islands. 



" Smith having made the land far to the eastward and somewhat 

 northerly, ran down the coast precisely in the direction of Gerard'.s 

 land-fall, and to within three or four hundred miles of the same, sup- 

 posing Gerard to have been correct in his reckoning, or in the esti- 

 mate, I should rather say, of his position. 



" I observed some very long and learned discussions in the Lite- 

 rary Gazette, in Blackwood's Magazine, and other publications of 

 18'iO, respecting the courses sailed by Cook and other navigators in 

 the Southern Ocean ; thence deducing the reasons why this im- 

 portant discovery had never before been made. Not the slightest 

 notice or allusion occurs, however, in these publications, with respect 

 to the land of Gerrard. — I had remarked the omission to Captain 

 M'Pherson of Perth Estate, and to several gentlemen in this vici- 

 nity, at the time those publications reached us. 



" I did not, however, believe that the real merits of this case would 

 have remained so long concealed from the public. It is indeed dif- 

 ficult to account for this silence ; for we can hardly conceive that the 

 editors of those periodicals could be ignorant of Gerrard's discovery, 

 and of the probable identity which I have alluded to, and which is the 

 more striking and conclusive, from the remarkable coincidence in the 

 descriptions by which the two navigators have characterized the phy- 

 siognomy of the coast j both expressly comparing its appearance to 

 that of the coast of Norway*. 



" Gerrard, who having doubled Cape Horn, and passed the Straits 

 of Magellan, was driven under bare poles in a storm for a part of two 

 days towards the south-west, may have overrated his run ; and con- 

 sidering the imperfection of nautical astronomy two hundred years 

 ago, as also that ships in our own time are not unfrequently found 

 under an error of 5 or 6 degrees of longitude, it is more than probable 

 that both Gerrard and Smith have beheld, not merely the same con- 

 tinent or group of islands, but even one and the same point, moun- 

 tain or promontory, of this Southern Thule. 



" In elucidation of Gerrard's discovery, I beg leave to refer vou to 

 Dalrymple's collection of voyages and discoveries, London 1770, 

 vol. i. page 94. — The same is cited in the instructions to Perouse, 

 vol. i.page 147. — See also Dunn's Chart of the World on Mercator's 

 Projection, published by Laurie and Whittle." 



Essequebo, May, 14, 1823. 



SCIENTIFIC I500KS. 

 Just Published. 

 No. I., complete in itself, of The Natural History of several new, 



• The name of New Norway would doubtless have i)ccn more appro- 

 priate than the long, barbarous, and sigmoid sound of New South Slictland ! 



popular 



