298 ISLANDS DISCOVERED 



reefs. He sailed at a distance of a mile at the 

 utmost, along the north-easterly, south-easterly, 

 and south-west parts of this chain. From the west 

 point, the islands took a direction to N.W. and N., 

 but he was obliged to leave this part unexplored. 

 The extent of the islands of Rurick's chain which he 

 surveyed, for so Lieutenant Kotzebue called these 

 islands to the west point, he found, exclusive of the 

 bendings, to be forty miles : the circumference of 

 the whole chain he estimated at least at sixty 

 miles. The N. E. point of Rurick's chain lies in 

 15" ir S., the east point in 15° 20', and 146° 30' 

 W.; the S.W. point in 15° 30', and the west point 

 in 15° 20'. 



Rurick's chain may be looked upon as an en- 

 tirely new discovery, even supposing that the 

 eastern part of these islands is that land which 

 Cook saw in the N. N. E., when he was at his third 

 Palliser's Island, and called the fourth of his group. 

 At the distance in which he was from this land, he 

 must have considered it as an island of inconsider- 

 able size. Fleurieu takes this fourth island to be 

 the one called by Roggewein the Sister, and it is 

 marked on his chart as the smallest of the Shadelyk 

 islands. 



When Lieutenant Kotzebue was sailing round the 

 southern end of Rurick's chain, land was descried 

 from the mast-head, but which he was obliged to 

 leave unexplored : it lies in 15° 45', and 146'' 55\ and 

 is, according to all probability, the island called 

 13 



