362 COSMOS. 



that of a volcano. More certain evidences of former genuine 

 volcanic action on the island of Amsterdam may be found in 

 the beds of pumice-stone {uitgehranden jmimsteen), mention of 

 which is made so early as by Valentyn, according to Vla- 

 ming's Ship Journal of 1696. 



To the southeast of the Cape of Good Hope lie Marion's, 

 or Prince Edward's Island (47° 2^), and Possession Island 

 (lat. 46° 28^, and long. 51° 560, forming part of the Grozet 

 group. Both of them exhibit traces of former volcanic ac- 

 tion — small conical bills,* with eruption openings surround- 

 ed by columnar basalt. 



More eastward, and almost in the same latitude, we come 



of Paris, Berlin, and Gottingen), " that on the special chart of Cook's 

 last expedition the island of Amsterdam is set down as more to the 

 south than St. Paul." A similar reversal of the appellations, quite 

 opposed to the intention of the discoverer, Willem de Vlaming, was 

 frequent in the first third of the present century — as, for example, on 

 the older and excellent maps of the world by Arrowsmith and Purdy 

 (1833) — but there was more than a special chart of Cook's third voy- 

 age operating to cause it. There was, 1st, the arbitrary entry on the 

 maps of Cox and Mortimer ; 2d, the circumstance that, in the atlas 

 of Lord Macartney's voyage to China, though the beautiful volcanic 

 island represented smoking is very correctly named St. Paul, under 

 lat. 158° 42', yet it is absurdly added, " commonly called Amsterdam," 

 and, what is still worse, in the narrative of the voyage itself, StauiUtin 

 and Dr. Gillan uniformly called this " island still in a state of inflam- 

 mation" Amsterdam, and they even add (p. 226, after having given the 

 correct latitude in p. 219) "that St. Paul is lying to the northward of 

 Amsterdam ; and, 3d, there is the same confusion of names by Bar- 

 row {Voyage to Cochin CJiina in the Years 1792 and 1793, p. 140-157), 

 who also gives the name of Amsterdam to the southern island, emit- 

 ting smoke and flames, assigning to it at the "same time the latitude 

 38° 42'. Malte-Brun {Precis de la Gcographie Universelle, t. v., 1817, 

 p. 146) very properly blames Barrow, but he errs in also blaming M. 

 de Rossel and Beautemps-Beaupre. Both of the latter writers give as 

 the latitude of the island of Am^h*dam, which is the only one they rep- 

 resent, 37° 47', and that of the island of St. Paul, because it lies 50' 

 more to the south, 38° 38' {Voy. de D^Entrecasteaux, 1808, t. i., p. 

 40-46) ; and to show that the design represents the true island of Am- 

 sterdam, discovered by Willem de Vlaming, Beautemps-Beaupre adds 

 in his atlas a copy of the thickly-wooded island of Amsterdam from 

 Valentyn. I may here observe that, the celebrated navigator, Abel 

 Tasman, having in 1642, along with Middelburg, called the island of 

 Tonga-Tabu (lat. 21^°), in the Tonga group, by the name of Amster- 

 dam (Burney, Chronolog. Hist, of the Voyages and Discoveries in the 

 South Sea or Pacific Ocean, part iii., p. 81 and 437), he has also been 

 sometimes erroneously cited as the discoverer of Amsterdam and St. 

 Paul, in the Indian Ocean. See Leidenfrost, Histor. Handivortenbuchy 

 bd. v., s. 310. 



* Sir James Ross, Voyage in the Southern and Antarctic Regions, vol. 

 i., p. 46, and 50-56. 



