Feb. lo, 1887] 



NATURE 



347 



was nothing else left for it lo do. It is almost needless to add 

 that, before I could focus and insert a plate, my Navajo baby 

 was out of ran^^e. And, fearing that its an;^ered mother might 

 appear at any point, at the cry of alarm of her child, I 

 immediately forsook the ground. | 



My object in making a record of such .an interesting case as 1 

 this is to simply draw attention to the fact that the native I 

 instincts of these .\iiierican Indians are exhibited in their young | 

 at a Wonderfully tender age; and in this particular they differ 

 vastly from our own children at a corresponding lime of life, and j 

 reared, as they have been for ages, in a civilised environment. | 



R. W. SUUIIiLDT 



Fort Wingate, New Mexico, January 1 1 



LONG- LOST REEFS 



AREMARK.ABLE instance of the manner in which | 

 small reefs in the ocean may elude search has 

 recently been brought to light, and may be of interest 

 to some readers of N.vturk. j 



In June 176S M. de Bougainville, in the frigate La 1 

 Boudciisc, having left Espiritu Santo, in the New [ 



Hebrides, was sailing west over the Coral Sea, south of 

 New Guinea, near the parallel of 15° S. At midnight of 

 the 4th he sighted a sand-bank, and waited till daylight 

 to examine it, when it proved to be a very small patch of 

 sand only just out of water, with apparently no reef 

 around it. This he called Bature de Uiane. 



Resuming his course west, he, on the 6lh, having run 

 by his reckoning 137 miles from the sand-bank, sighted 

 a reef on which the sea broke heavily, and closing it, 

 at noon obtained its position. After a zig zag course of 

 five hours, another reef was seen ahead, and as this 

 might be but the prelude to more, the project of exploring 

 further westward was given up, and La Boudcuse steered 

 northward, making New Guinea at a bay to which the 

 name of Cul de Sac de I'Orangerie was given. Bougain- 

 ville thus lost the honour of discovering the eastern coast 

 of Australia, which the celebrated Cook explored two 

 years later. On the last reefs seen no name was bestowed, 

 but they have always been known as the Bougainville 

 Reefs. 



Time passed, but these dangers were not again seen. 



The subject of their existence was much discussed, and 

 on the longitude of Espiritu Santo being revised, it was 

 recognised that M. de Bougainville's discoveries should 

 be also moved to the westward about sixty miles — the 

 amount of error in longitude of Espiritu Santo in his 

 time. The Diane was therefore placed in longitude 

 150° 28' E., and the reefs in 148° 6'. In this position they 

 were searched for by Capt. Denham in H.M..S. Herald, 

 who spent fifteen days in traversing in every direction an 

 area of forty miles radius round each danger, but without 

 success. As a result of this search, seeing that Bougain- 

 ville's description was so circumstantial that the existence 



of the dangers could scarcely be doubted, they were re- 

 moved back to their original positions on the charts. These 

 positions, though manifestly too near to Espiritu Santo, 

 agreed better with the land-fall made in New Guinea by 

 Lii Houdeusc after leaving the last reef, as it seemed im- 

 possible that the bay generally supposed to be the Cul 

 de Sac de I'Orangerie could have been reached on the 

 course steered by M. de Bougainville from any position 

 westward of longitude 149' 8' E., Bougainville's own 

 position of the reef. 



Many ships passed in fear and trembling over the long 

 line in which it was thought these dangers might yet 



