196 PACIFIC AND 



easily accounted for, when it is understood that it takes about 

 ninety whales, as they average, to make a full cargo, and that 

 from this calculation our own whalemen take about eight thousand 

 a year, and, from a moderate calculation, more than two thousand 

 are mortally wounded that cannot be taken, making ten thousand 

 a year destroyed by us. I have stated these particulars to show 

 how necessary it will be to explore new grounds in higher 

 southern latitudes for the right whale, when the sperm whale 

 become scarce in the equatorial regions. And, from the accounts 

 I have received, there is an immense extent of ocean in the high 

 southern latitudes westward, of which there is no account given ; 

 and if there be any, but little more is known than this, that the 

 geographer has marked it on his maps and charts with a sweeping 

 hand, to fill up the mighty space of which the world is as yet 

 ignorant, and will long remain so, if the enterprise of our govern- 

 ment does not explore it. 



I shall now proceed to give you a list of the discoveries of our 

 enterprising and careful navigators in those seas, in as tabular a 

 form as may be consistent with a clear view of the extent and 

 importance of these discoveries. The English charts, and those 

 of other countries, are as yet very imperfect. Much of their 

 information has been obtained from loose accounts from whalers, 

 who were careless in some instances, and forgetful in others, and 

 which were seized with greediness by the makers of maps and 

 charts, in order to be the first to make these discoveries known. 

 But, perhaps, it does not become us to be hypercritical upon other 

 nations, as we have as yet no maps or charts of our own to com- 

 pare with them. 



From all the accounts I have received of the islands, reefs, 

 rocks, &c., in these seas, I draw the inference that most of them 

 are of volcanic origin, and have arisen, in the lapse of ages, in 

 groups or single islands, as it has pleased the great Creator of the 



