NOTES. CXX1X 



Amsterdam and St. Paul in the Indian Ocean. See Leidenfrost, Histor. Hand- 

 worterbuch, Bd. v. S. 310. 



( M4 ) p. 370. Sir James Ross, Voyage in the Southern and Antarctic Re- 

 gions, vol. i. p. 46 and 50 56. 



C 505 ) p. 371. The same, p. 6382. 



( S06 ) p. 372. Result of weighings by Professor Rigaud at Oxford, according 

 to Halley's old proposal. See my Asie Centrale, t. i p. 1 89. 



C 07 ) p. 373. D'Urville, Voy. de la Corvette 1'Astrolabe, 1826 1829, Atlas 

 PI. : I. Polynesie is made to comprise the eastern portion of the Pacific (the 

 Sandwich Islands, Tahiti, and the Tonga Archipelago ; and also New Zealand). 

 2. Microne'sie and MeJane'sie take the western part of the Pacific Ocean : Micro- 

 ne'sie extending from Kauai, the westernmost of the Sandwich Islands, to near 

 Japan and the Philippines,, and southwards to the equator, comprising the Ma-- 

 rianas or Ladrones, and the Carolinas and Pelew. Isles. 3. Me'lanesie (from 

 the dark-haired race of men) by its north-west border touching Malaisie, com- 

 prises the small groups of Viti or Feejee, the New Hebrides, and Solomon 

 Islands, and the larger islands of New Caledonia, New Britain, New Ireland, and 

 New Guinea. The names of Oceanie and Polyne'sie, which have been often ap- 

 plied in so contradictory a manner, were introduced by Malte-Brun in 1813, and 

 Lesson in 1828. 



C 508 ) p. 373." The epithet scattered, as applied to the islands of the ocean 

 (in the arrangement of the groups), conveys a very incorrect idea of their posi- 

 tions. There is a system in their arrangement as regular as in the mountain 

 heights of a continent, and ranges of elevations are indicated, as grand and exten- 

 sive as any continent presents." (Geology, by J. Dana, or United States' Ex- 

 ploring Expedition under the command of Charles Wilkes, vol. x. (1849) p. 12.) 

 Dana counts in the whole Pacific, omitting mere rock islets, 350 basaltic or 

 trachytic, and 290 coral islands. He divides them into twenty-five groups, of 

 which nineteen have a mean axial direction of N. 50 60 W., and six have 

 one of N. 20 30 E. It is an extremely striking circumstance that all this 

 great number of islands (with a few exceptions as the Sandwich Islands and New 

 Zealand) lie between the parallels of 23 28' of north and of south latitude, and 

 that there remains so enormous a space without islands between the Sandwich 

 and Nukahiva groups and the American shores of Mexico and Peru. Dana adds 

 a further consideration, which contrasts greatly with the small number of the 

 now active volcanoes : namely, that if we may assume the probability that coral 

 islands, where they are found lying intermediately between islands which are en- 

 tirely basaltic, rest also on a basaltic foundation, then the number of volcanic 

 VOL. IV. i 



