2 Cruise of the ^^ Alert.'' ^ 



places which were not formerly of importance. The South Pacific 

 portion of our survey was to be mainly in connection with the 

 recently acquired colony of the Fiji Islands, and was to be devoted 

 to an exploration of the eastern passages leading to this group, 

 with an investigation of the doubtful dangers reported in the 

 vicinity of the great shipping tracts. Finally, on completing the 

 above, and arriving at Australia, we were to spend a year and a 

 half, or thereabouts, in surveying the line of reefs which fringe 

 its whole western seaboard, the ill-defined position of which is 

 a serious obstacle to the now extensive trade between Western 

 Australia and the Dutch islands of the Malay Archipelago. 



The latter part of the orders was subsequently changed, inas- 

 much as we were directed to omit the survey of the western 

 shores of Australia, and were ordered instead, on completing the 

 North Australian work, to proceed to Singapore, in the Straits of 

 Malacca, to refit. Thence we were to return home by the Cape 

 of Good Hope, stopping on our way at the Seychelles, Amirante 

 Islands, and Mozambique, in order to fix astronomically the 

 position of the Amirante group, and, as opportunities occurred, to 

 take a line of soundings off the east coast of Africa. 



The vessel selected for this special service was the Alert, a 

 man-of-war sloop of 751 tons measurem-cnt and 60 horse-power 

 nominal ; and the command of the expedition was given to Capt. 

 Sir George Nares, K.C.B. By a happy coincidence the same stout 

 craft which had already done such good service in the Arctic 

 Expedition of 1875-6, and which bears the honour of having 

 attained the highest northern latitude, was selected as the ship 

 in which Sir George Nares was now about to proceed on a 

 voyage of exploration in high southern latitudes. She was offi- 

 cially commissioned on the 20th of August, with a complement 

 of 120 officers and men, her equipments including apparatus 

 for conducting deep sea sounding and dredging operations, and 

 a miscellaneous collection of instruments not usually supplied 

 to H.M.'s ships. 



