United States Exploring Expedition. 397 



In the spring of 1841, the Vincennes and Porpoise were early 

 on the coast of Oregon. The Peacock and Flying Fish arrived 

 there in July, and while attempting to enter the Columbia, the 

 Peacock met with her disaster. There were several land expe- 

 ditions into the interior of Oregon, of from five hundred to one 

 thousand miles each, and one of about eight hundred miles, from 

 the Columbia River, to San Francisco in California. 



The vessels left California in November of 1841, touched for 

 supplies at the Sandwich Islands, and proceeded to Manilla in the 

 Philippines ; thence to Mindanao, and through the Sooloo Archi- 

 pelago, and the straits of Balabac, to Singapore, which place they 

 reached in February of 1842. They proceeded thence by the 

 straits of Sunda to the Cape of Good Hope, and passing by St. He- 

 lena, the squadron arrived at New York in June of 1842, having 

 been absent from the country about three years and ten months, 

 and having sailed between eighty and ninety thousand miles. 



The number of islands surveyed during the cruise of the ex- 

 ploring expedition, is about two hundred and eighty, besides eight 

 hundred miles on the streams and coast of Oregon, and one thou- 

 sand and five hundred miles laid down along the land and icy 

 barrier of the Antarctic continent. Numerous islands of doubtful 

 existence have been looked for, shoals have been examined, reefs 

 discovered and laid down, harbors surveyed and many for the 

 first time made known, and the latitudes and longitudes of the 

 points visited have been determined with all possible precision. 

 Very many of the doubtful points in the geography of the Pa- 

 cific have been cleared up, and the expedition is prepared to sup- 

 ply our navigators with the most complete map of the ocean ever 



published. 



Next to Oregon, the Feejee group may be considered the most 

 important of the unexplored regions visited by the squadron. 

 This group is a perfect labyrinth of lofty islands and coral reefs, 

 and many disastrous wrecks have already occurred to our trading 

 vessels in those seas. The islands are visited for biche-da-mar,* 

 tortoise shell, and sandal-wood; and there is no part of the year 

 in which there are not some Yankee cruisers threading their dan- 



* The biche-da-mar is a kind of sea-slug— a sluggish, cucumber-shaped animal, 

 that lives about the reefs. It is boiled and dried over a smoking fire, and carried 

 in ship-loads to the Chinese market, where it is esteemed a great delicacy. 



