210 DAHLGREN, THE D1SCOVERY OF THE HAWAIIAN ISLANDS. 



But we need not go back to the entirely obsolete works of insignificant geographers 

 in order to see with what obstinacy representations that had once won acceptance kept 

 their hold on the maps. If, for instance, we look at a map of the Pacific Ocean published 

 in 1857 by the well-known geographer August Petermann, 1 we see there almost all 

 the islands from the Anson chart reappearing with the exception of the Los Monges group: 

 some, such as the Maria Laxar and Colunas, characterized as doubtful, but others without 

 any such warning, and amongst these last Eoca de Platå, Rica de Oro Lots Weib (with 

 Meares' incorrect position), the groups of Lamira-Decierta and Camira-Vullcan-Decierta, 

 Sebastian Lobus, Malabrigos, etc. To these names, which are in part incorrectly given, 

 there have been added a large number of islands taken from the not very reliable reports 

 of whalers and other seamen. Meinicke could rightly declare, therefore, (1869) that even 

 the most recent maps of the Pacific were in an anything but satisfactory condition, and 

 that the doubtful islands on the better maps amounted to nearly a hundred, while those 

 which were cited in geographical works amounted perhaps to ten times that number. 2 

 Nor did Petermann's map of Polynesia (1872) 3 contain any substantial improvement: 

 here we see east and north-east of the Mariannes a large group with the appellation Anson 

 Archipelago, consisting of some thirty islands, reefs and shoals, of which not more than 

 two can with certainty be said to exist; north and north-west of the Mariannes, under 

 the appellation Magellan Archipelago, we find combined together the Shitchito, Bonin, 

 Volcano, and Borodino groups, and a number of other islands, the majority of which are 

 non-existent. 



On the most recent maps the doubtful islands and most of the old Spanish names 

 have disappeared: there now remain only (Brit. Adm. Chart) Jardines, San Augustino, 

 San Alessandro, Forfana or Arzobispo,* and Bosario. So too we have got rid of a number 

 of names which have been given in modern times to discoveries which safely can be reduced 

 to mere illusions — a mirage, a bank of clouds on the horizon, and so forth. 



Of these discoveries from modern times only a very few have been ascertained. 

 Amongst them may be mentioned Marcus Island, which was possibly seen by the Spaniards, 5 

 but about which the information is so indef inite that it must be regarded as a new discovery. 

 Yet we do not know who made that discovery, nor what is the origin of the name Marcus 

 Island. The first mention of this name that I have found is on Petermann's map of 1857; 

 on 17 December 1864 the island was seen by Captain Gelett, of the Hawaiian Mission 

 ship "Morning Står", and was called by him Weeks Island; in 1874 its position was deter- 

 mined as 24° 14' N. lat., and 154° 0' E. long. by Commander George F. Belknap, of the 

 U. S. Survey ship "Tuscarora"; and in 1902 the island was visited by William Alanson 

 Bryan, who has given a detailed description of it. 6 Both Japan and the United States 



1 Petermann 1 s Mitteilungen, III, 1857, Tal). 1. 



2 Zur HydrograpMc des Stillen Oceans (Petermamrs Mitteilungen, XV, 1869, p. 374). 



3 Stieler's Hand-Atlas, Pl. 76 and 77. 



4 Probably the same as San Alessandro; in any case it is incorrect to revive here the old name Far- 

 fana from Bernardo de la Torre, for most probably that belongs to the Bonin group. 



5 See above, pp. 33, 100. 



6 .1 Monograph of Marcus Island (Occasional Papers of the Bernice Pauahi Bishop Museum of 

 Polynesian Ethnology and Natural History. Vol. II, no. 1, Honolulu 1903, pp. 77 — 139). 



