1 98 APPENDIX. 



appear to be an atoll, but Sir E. Belcher (Voyage round the 

 World, vol. i. 1843, p. 255) speaks of it as of coral-forma- 

 tion, with deep water within the lagoon ; left uncoloured. 

 The eastern part of the Pacific presents an enormous area 

 without any islands, except Easter and Gomez, which do not 

 appear to be surrounded by reefs. 



The Low or Paumotu Archipelago. — This group consists 

 of about 80 atolls : it would be quite superfluous to refer to 

 descriptions of each. In D'Urville and Lottin's chart, one 

 island (Wolchonsky) is written with a capital letter, signifying, 

 as explained in a former chapter, that it is a high island ; but 

 this must be a mistake, as the original chart by Bellinghausen 

 shows that it is a true atoll. Captain Beechey says of the 32 

 groups which he examined (of the greater number of which I 

 have seen beautiful MS. charts in the Admiralty), that 29 

 now contain lagoons, and he believes the other three originally 

 did so. Bellinghausen (see an account of this Russian voyage, 

 in the Biblioth. des Voyages, 1834, p. 443) says that the 17 

 islands which he discovered resembled each other in structure, 

 and he has given charts on a large scale of all of them. Kot- 

 zebue has given plans of several ; Cook and Bligh mention 

 others ; a few were seen during the voyage of the Beagle ; 

 and notices of other atolls are scattered through several pub- 

 lications. The Action group in this archipelago has lately 

 been discovered (Geograph. Journ., vol. vii. p. 454) ; it 

 consists of three small and low islets, one of which has a 

 lagoon. Another lagoon-island has been discovered (Naut. 

 Mag. 1839, p. 770), in 22° 4' S. and 136° 20' W. Dana, 

 in his work on Corals and Coral Islands, gives a full 

 account of this archipelago. Towards the S.E. there are 

 some islands of a different nature : Elizabeth Island is 

 described by Beechey (p. 46, 4to. edit.) as fringed by reefs, 

 at the distance o£ between two and three hundred yards ; 

 coloured red. Pitcairn Island, in the immediate neighbourhood, 

 according to the same authority, has no reefs of any kind, 



