KUNGL. SV. VÉT. AKADEMIENS HANDLINGAR. BAND 57. NtO 4. 203 



Torishima, "Bird Island". 1 During the collecting season there were about 500 persons 

 living on the island; the fixed population amounted to 125 persons, who dwelt in a little 

 village of 40 honses situated on a terrace 30 yards above sea-level. They collected feathers, 

 eggs, and guano; and for the transport of these products a tramway was laid half-way up 

 to the highest summit, on wliich the waggons were hauled by a wire-rope. All this equip- 

 ment was destroj^ed in the volcanic eruption which probably took place in August 1902, 

 but concerning which no details are known, for, when the island was afterwards visited, 

 not a single one of its inhabitants was found alive: the village had disappeared, the top 

 of the mountain was blown off, and its place was occupied by a crater, and the whole 

 island was covered with ash and strewn with lava-blocks. 2 — I do not know whether this 

 catastrophe extended its effects in the region around and caused alterations in that part 

 of the sea-bottom from wliich the neighbouring island of Lot's Wife rises. If that rock, 

 which also is quite certainly a volcanic formation, disappeared on the same occasion, that 

 would imply the vanishing of the last trace of the once so famous Rica de Oro. 



Other and more important tasks than the search for the doubtful islands of the old 

 charts lay before Cook, when he steered northwards after the discovery of the Sandwich 

 Islands. He could not find any passage to the Atlantic; but we need not here remind 

 the reader of the not less important results of his voyage. Nor did his death deter his 

 successors in the command, Captains Clerke, Gore and King, from prosecuting the 

 principal objects that were intrusted to him to fulfil. In order to attain these objects 

 they steered from Hawaii to Kamchatka, and on the way thither, in April 1779, they 

 sought for both Rica de Platå and Juan da Gama's land — the former in 33° 30 r N. lat., 

 166° E. long.; the latter in 44° and 45° N. lat., according to Delisle's map (Fig. 23). No 

 land could be seen, of course, despite a whole day's standing off and on in the place where 

 Gama-land ought to ha ve been, and after this, says Captain King, "we again steered to 

 the northward, not thinking it worth our while to lose time in search of an object, the 

 opinion of whose existence had been already pretty generally exploded". 3 



After the ice in Bering Strait had once again placed an insuperable barrier in the 

 way of the expedition, they found themselves compelled definitively to return home, 

 starting from Kamchatka with Macao as their immediate goal. The plan of surveying the 

 eastern coast of Japan on the way had to be abandoned. That no trace of Gama-land could 

 be discovered led to the conclusion that "if suchland existed at all, it must be an island 

 of a very inconsiderable size". 4 When after this the course was to be taken through the 



1 One of those who took part in the expedition that conveyed the first settlers to the island was the 

 German botanist 0. Warburg, who has given a lively description of it. See Eine Beise nach den Bonin- 

 nnd Volcano-Inseln (Verh. der Ges. fiir Erdkunde zu Berlin, XVIII, 1891, pp. 248 — 268). 



2 The Volcanic Eruption of Torishima (Geogr. Journal, XXI, 1903, pp. 436 — 439). Eruption of 

 Torishima (St. Peter Island) by Shuzaburo Inoma and Fusakichi Omori (The Journal of Geography publ. by 

 the Tokyo Geogr. Soc. XIV, 1902). The last-named artide is accompanied by a detailed map of the island 

 showing its appearance before the eruption. 



3 A Voyage to the Pacific Ocean, III, pp. 177, 180. 



4 Ibid., p. 387. 



