178 Memoir on the Expediency of [March, 



Article VII. 



Memoir on the Expediency of surveying the Indian Archipelago. 

 (To the Editors of the Annals of Philosophy.) 



GENTLEMEN, 



Amongst the many voyages of discovery and survey by 

 which the last sixty years have been distinguished, it is not a 

 little surprising that some of the most interesting portions of the 

 globe should still remain unexplored. So minute and extensive 

 have been the researches of our navigators in every other direc- 

 tion, that no one will be at a loss to recognize in the exception 

 here figured, the Islands of the Indian Archipelago. Yes, not- 

 withstanding the mighty things that have been done, this widely 

 spreading cluster may, in many important particulars, be deno- 

 minated a terra incognita — one of the brightest regions on the 

 face of the earth, occupying an immense space of insular surface, 

 and, therefore, easily accessible to our power, is, in all that 

 reorards intimate and authentic information, almost unknown to 

 us. Not a desolate islet — not a promontory, creek, anchorage, 

 rock, reef, or sandbank, throughout the whole expanse of the 

 South Sea, but is laid down with an accuracy that shames the 

 charts of many important and dangerous parts of our own coasts 

 at home, while I question whether there be extant a scientifiq 

 plan of half a dozen harbours (I except some of the more 

 frequented ports in Sumatra and Java) of the hundreds of large 

 and beautiful islands that garnish the coasts of further India — 

 countries abounding in all that can administer to the wants, the 

 comforts, and the luxuries of man. 



Such ignorance is more easily explicable than it is creditable 

 to that spirit of enterprize for which this country has, in modern 

 times, been sufiiciently conspicuous, and which has, especially 

 of late years, been exerted upon principles and for purposes 

 honourable to human nature. 



An entirely new and glorious epoch in the history of geogra^ 

 phical and hydrographical discovery signalized the reign of the 

 first naturalized British monarch of the Brunswick line, and shed 

 on it what will probably constitute its brightest lustre in the eyes 

 of posterity ; for thoi commenced that series of undertakings 

 which had for their object not the private emolument of indivi- 

 duals, or of companies — not even the acquisition of national 

 wealth, but were intended for the benefit of mankind at large. 

 Thus while other nations boast of their wars and their conquests, 

 we may honestly exult in the far higher renown of having carried 

 the noble and useful science of navigation to a point of perfec- 



