BY THE RURICK. SO-S 



which was not easy, as tliere is not a more danger- 

 ous ocean for navigation than this : it is covered 

 with low coral isl&nds and reefs, scarcely project- 

 ing above the surface, and winding in different 

 directions in chains, sometimes farther than 

 the eye can reach, and the more perilous, as the 

 navigator, though surrounded by land, can no 

 where cast anchor. To examine these islands with 

 greater precision, he is obliged, on account of their 

 low situation, to come very close to them ; and if 

 a sudden gust of wind should arise, or gloomy and 

 stormy weather set in, he is in danger of being 

 driven against the steep coral walls, a misfortune 

 which happened to one of Roggewein's ships. 

 These parts have therefore been very much avoided, 

 and, consequently, not examined by any late navi- 

 gator. Commodore Byron saw, indeed, several 

 of those low islands ; and it is very probable, as I 

 will immediately proceed to show, that some of 

 these islands are those which were also seen by 

 Schouten : Roggewein's discoveries, on the con- 

 trary, as they lie more south, must necessarily have 

 escaped him. Bougainville, Waliis, and Cook, in 

 1773, took a much more southern course, on which 

 a similar archipelago was discovered ; the sea, how- 

 ever, in which the problematical discoveries of 

 Le Maire, Schouten, and Roggewcin lie, has not 

 been explored in its whole extent from east to west. 

 Captain Cook, in 1774'> on his voyage from the 

 Mendoza islands to Otaheite, crossed it only from 

 N. E. to S. W. Lieutenant Kotzebue was there- 



V 3 



