CHAPTER y. 



MICRONESIA. 

 I. — The Mariana or Laurone Islands. 



TTESE islands, politically united to the Philippines for over two 

 centuries, are also associated with them in the history of maritime 

 exploration. They were the first group met by Magellan in 1521 

 on his voyage round the globe, and ten days afterwards he had 

 reached the Philippine island of Cebu and the adjacent islet of 

 Mactan, where he met his death. Later, when the Spaniards had permanently 

 occupied the Philippines and established the regular service of their galleons across 

 the Pacific, the island of Guam in the Marianas became the indispensable station 

 for their mariners between Manilla and Acapulco on the Mexican coast ; and when 

 the aborigines of the Marianas had almost entirely disappeared this group was 

 repeopled by immigrants from the Philippines, bringing with them new plants, 

 usages, and language. 



The name of the Ladrones, or "Robbers," given to these islands by Magellan, 

 has fallen into abeyance, and, like the Philippines, they are indebted to flattery 

 for their more usual designation conferred on them in honour of the Spanish 

 Queen, Mariana of Austria, wife of Philip. After their discovery by Magellan 

 they were explored chiefly by Anson, Byron, Wallis, and Freycinet. 



A space of about 1,200 miles going eastwards separates the most advanced land 

 in the Philippines from the first south-western island in the Mariana group, and 

 this space is everywhere almost entirely free from islets or reefs of any sort. 

 Nothing but a few rocks, such as Parece Vela, are visible in the north as the 

 archipelago is approached from Japan, while some other lands announce the 

 proximity of the Pelew Islands to mariners advancing from the south. Thus the 

 chain of the Marianas is limited westwards by a perfectly open sea about 80,000 

 square miles in extent, and in some places from 1,200 to 1,500 fathoms deep. 

 Hence it is evident that this archipelago is in no way connected with the forma- 

 tion of the Philippines, but belongs to an independent geological sj^stem. 



The disposition of the chain shows at a glance an obvious analogy with the 

 volcanic ranges of the Kuriles and Aleutian Islands, describing as it does an 

 arc of surprising regularity, as if traced with a compass with its fixed point resting 

 on the north coast of Luzon. The Marianas also constitute a volcanic range, some 



