GEOGRAPHICAL APPENDIX. 279 



-change in the appearance of this rock, since the visit of Dentrecasteaux in 1702 when it 

 summit was crowned witli shrubs, has been jirobablydue to a movement of subsidence whicli 

 has affected the adjacent coast of Eddystone Island in recent years {vide below). To such 

 a change must be attributed the confusion which has arisen with reference to the Eddystone 

 rock ; and cartographers, failing to identify it, have applied its name to the adjaceiit 

 volcanic island on which they have also bestowed the name of Simbo. During his survey of 

 this island in 1882, Lieutenant Oldham ascertained that this name of Simbo actually be- 

 longed to a small island bordering its south-east coast with which it was connected b}- 

 •coral reefs The true native name of Eddystone Island, he found to be Narovo, and in 

 the latest Admiralty charts it is thus designated ; the name of Simbo is there attached to the 

 small adjacent island whicli is, I have no doubt, the Simboo from which the natives came, 

 who visited Shortland's ships in 17S8 as they lay off the Eddystone rock. At the present 

 day the larger island of Xarovo is but thinly populated, and its inhabitants are under the 

 sway of a powerful chief who resides on the small island of Simbo. There he rules over 

 ■^ warlike and adventurous people who by their head-hunting raids have established the fame 

 of their diminutive island throughout a large portion of the Solomon Group. 



[ In my volume of Geological Observations I have described the movement of subsidence, 

 ■to which is due the confusion concerning the original Eddystone rock]. 



