NOEÏH MELANESIA. 319 



Two hundred years after Mendana's voyage, Carteret, in 1767, followed the 

 next year by Bougainville, and in 1769 by Surville, again sailed through the 

 straits and channels discovered by the Spanish navigator, but without identify- 

 ing them ; in fact, they fancied they had discovered new lands and accordingly 

 gave them new names. It was reserved for Buache and Fleurieu, by patient 

 investigation and comparative studies of the early itineraries, to restore to the 

 Spanish mariners the glory of having first explored these Melanesian regions. 



But while navigators were in vain seeking the lost route to the Solomon group, 

 they visited other lands lying nearer to New Guinea. In 1616 the Dutch sailors. 

 Le Maire and Schouten, surveyed the " Twenty-five Islands," since Carteret's time 

 known as the Admiralty Archipelago • they also discovered Birara or New 

 Britain, which, however, they mistook for the northern seaboard of New Guinea 

 fringed with numerous islets. Tasnian, who also visited these lands in 1643, fell into 

 the same error, which was not corrected till the year 1700, when Dampier, passing 

 southwards, penetrated into the strait that bears his name, and thus determined 

 the insular character of the Admiralty group ; but much still remained to be 

 done, and the systematic survey of these waters, begun in the last century by 

 Carteret, Bougainville, and d'Entrecasteaux, and continued in 1827 by Dumont 

 d'Urville, is only now being gradually completed. 



For the inland exploration of the islands little has hitherto been done. 

 Missionaries, traders, adventurers, naturalists, such as Miklukho-Maklay, Finsch, 

 Guppy, have visited various parts of the Melanesian groups and published the 

 results of their studies ; but no methodical survey of the whole region was begun 

 till the year 1884, when New Britain and New Ireland were occupied by the 

 German Government. Unfortunately, one of the first official acts of that power 

 was to change the geographical nomenclature, in which names of English and 

 French origin prevailed. Doubtless, some of these arbitrary terms might with 

 advantage have been suppressed, and replaced by those current amongst the 

 natives themselves. But the maps have been modified in the spirit of a mistaken 

 or aggressive patriotism, without considering whether the new terminology could 

 be justified by the physical aspect of the islands, the nature of the soil, 

 population, or comparative geography. 



The chief insular group has thus become the Bismarck Archipelago ; Tombara, 

 or New Ireland, is henceforth to be known as New Mecklenburg ; York Island 

 has taken the name of New Lauenburg, and Birara, or New Britain, that of New 

 Pomerania. Most of the mountains and ports have been similarly " re-baptised," 

 ■with a cynical defiance of international etiquette and indifference to the fitness of 

 things. 



Physical Features of North Melanesia. 



The North Melanesian lands are disposed in the form of two transverse curves. 

 The northern, beginning with Tiger Island, about 100 miles north of the New Guinea 

 seaboard, stretches eastwards through the groups of Ninigo or Exchequer, the 



