29: _ GEOGRAPHICAL MEMOIR. 
Duck island, was changed by Wilkes to Gourd island, and is re-established again by the 
Admiralty and Coast Survey charts. 
Matra GROUP are two little islands to the east-southeast of Sucia ; Wilkes called them the 
Edmund’s Group, but the English Admiralty and Coast Survey charts have Matia Group. 
Mr. G. Davidson, of the Coast Survey, who surveyed (1853) this little group, the Sucia Group, 
Patos island, and Waldron island, has materially changed the configuration given to those 
islands on former surveys; and he has, at the same time, proved the non-existence of the 
Little Adolpines and Gordon islands, which Wilkes and other charts put to the south of the 
Percival group. 
BARNES'S ISLAND, CLARK’S ISLAND, and the SISTERS, form а little group to the north of Point 
Lawrence, the easternmost cape of Orcas, and Peapod Knol to the south of it. Lopez island 
is the third of the great islands of De Haro archipelago. 
It is the extreme southeastern island of the group. It has a length of ten miles from north 
to south, and marks with its southeastern extremity, called Colville Point, the entrance of 
Rosario strait. 
In the history of exploration this point is further memorable, because the officers of the 
Spanish exploring expedition, of the Sutil and Mexicana, anchored at this point on the 10th 
of June, and made here an observation of an emersion of the first satellite of J upiter.* 
The name of this island is probably of Spanish origin, and perhaps it is to be derived from 
the first discoverer of this archipelago, Lopez Gonzales de Haro. Wilkes called it Chauncy’s 
island, after Captain Chauncy, of the U. S. N., but the old name, Lopez, has been restored on 
the Admiralty and Coast Survey charts. The southeastern part of this island forms nearly an 
island of itself. From this peninsula a chain of islands runs out directly to the north, con- 
necting Lopez and Orcas, and constituting the western shore of Rosario strait. The first of 
them on the south is Decatur’s island, so called by Wilkes after the celebrated Captain Decatur. 
Five or six little islets lie around it, among them James island, to the east, towards Rosario 
strait. 
Blakely island is to the north of the former, and was called by Wilkes after Captain Blakely, 
U. S. N., after whom a little harbor had already been called on Bainbridge island. Between it 
and Lopez island lies the little Foost island, so named by Wilkes after his friend Mr. Foost. 
North of Blakely island, in the channel between it and Orcas, lies Obstruction island. 
Shaw’s island has a central position in the whole archipelago, and is separated by three 
channels from the three great islands, Orcas, Lopez, and San Juan. It was named by Wilkes 
after Captain Shaw, U. S. М. It has no name on the English Admiralty charts of 1841. 
The small channels also which separate the islands of the archipelago received names from 
Wilkes, like those of the islands, commemorating names of officers of the United States navy 
and of naval events. 
For instance, Ontario Roads, the passage along Lopez or Chauncy island to the east, so called 
because Captain Chauncy had commanded on Lake Ontario. 
Frolic strait, between Shaw’s and Chauncy islands, after the English vessel the Frolic, 
captured by Captain Jones. 
Macedonian Crescent after an English vessel, the Macedonian. 
These names are not all retained on the English Admiralty and Coast Survey charts. 
9 See, upon this event, the Journal of the Sutil and Mexicana, p. 43. 
