354 APPENDIX. 



the ship Peacock, and to be second officer of said squadron, and take 

 command thereof, in the event of the death of the first officer, or his 

 disability, from accident or sickness, to conduct the operations of the 

 Expedition. 



(Signed) Mahlon Dickerson, 



Secretary of the Navy 

 Navy Department, June 22d, 1838. 



V. 



MEMORANDUM FOR THE COMMANDER OF THE EXPEDITION TO EXPLORE THE 

 SOUTH SEAS, BY ADMIRAL KRUSENSTEPvN. 



Note. — The asterisk after the number of some of these articles, denotes that the 

 islands, &c, have been examined by the Expedition. 



I. I have pointed out, in the supplementary volume of my Hydro- 

 graphical Memoirs, (pages 19, 96, and 113,) several islands, the 

 existence of which does not appear to be subject to any doubt, but of 

 which the position is not determined with the best precision. It is 

 much to be wished that all such islands were to be visited, and their 

 position verified. With respect to the islands of rather doubtful 

 existence, the names of which I have given, (pages 156-165, supple- 

 ment,) there is certainly no other method of ascertaining their ex- 

 istence than to search for them, and to determine, with the greatest 

 precision, the latitudes and longitudes of such as are found. A great 

 number of these imaginary islands will then, of course, vanish from 

 the charts. 



II. Captain Bligh discovered, in the year 1789, to the northward of 

 the New Hebrides, a group of islands, which he named Banks's 

 Islands ; and Captain Wilson, another cluster of islands, to the north- 

 ward of the Santa Cruz Islands, named by him Duff's Group. Neither 

 these nor the Banks's Islands having been since seen, it would be well 

 to make a new survey of them. 



III. Islands of Santa Cruz. — In my Memoir, belonging to the chart 

 of these islands, I have discussed the situation of Carteret's Swallow 

 Island* and expressed my belief that the islands seen by Captain Wilson 

 in 1797 are the same as Swallow Island. Captain Freycinet is of the 

 same opinion, and, by a new survey of Wilson's Island, confirmed this 

 hypothesis. There remains, then, no doubt that Byron's Swallow 

 Island does not exist ; but, as it still continues to be delineated on some 



