iSS APPENDIX. 



io° N., 109 W., has lately been surveyed by Capt. Belcher; 

 in form it is like the crater of a volcano. From a drawing 

 appended to the MS. plan in the Admiralty, it evidently is 

 not an atoll. The eastern parts of the Pacific present an 

 enormous area, without any islands, except Easter, and 

 Sa/a, and Gomez Islands, which do not appear to be 

 surrounded by reefs. 



The Low Archipelago. — This group consists of about 

 eighty 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. 

 Capt. 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. 

 Bellinghausen (see an account of his 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. 

 Kotzebue 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 publications. The Actaoti group in this archipelago 

 has lately been discovered (Geograflh. jfourn., vol. ii. p. 

 454) ; it consists of three small and low islets, one of which 

 has a lagoon. Another lagoon-island has been discovered 

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

 Towards the S.E. part of the group, there are some islands 

 of different formation : Elizabeth Island is described by 

 Beechey (p. 46, 4to ed.) as fringed by reefs, at the distance 



