GeO LILO) Ge x, 
CHAPTER 1. 
GENERAL REMARKS ON THE ISLANDS OFTHE 
PACIFIC OCEAN. 
Tue Pacific Ocean, between the coast of America on the one side, 
and Asia, the East Indies and New Holland on the other, Behring’s 
Straits on the north, and the parallel of 66° south, covers more than 
sixty-two millions of square miles, and exceeds by ten millions of 
square miles the area of all the continents and islands of the globe.* 
About six hundred and seventy-five islands are scattered over this 
expanse of waters: but though so great their number, the surface of 
the whole, exclusive of New Zealand, does not exceed eighty thousand 
square miles, an extent little beyond New Zealand alone. Excepting 
also from the estimate New Caledonia, the Salomon Group, and other 
large islands in the southeast part of the ocean, lying between them 
and New Guinea, there are but forty thousand square miles, (less 
than the State of New York,) for the six hundred islands remaining. 
* The fact above stated is deduced from the calculation of 8S. P. Rigaud on the 
“ Relative Quantities of Land and Water on the Terraqueous Globe,” in the Transactions 
of the Cambridge Philosophical Society, (England,) vol. vi., 1837, p. 289. From his 
results we learn that out of a thousand parts, into which he divides the world, there are 
contained in the Pacific Ocean, in 
The North temperate zone, - - - - 72°3793 parts. 
The North torrid zone, - - - - 70°8383 “ 
The South torrid zone, - - - - 77:0000 nearly. 
The South temperate zone - - - - 95-9685 parts. 
The whole Pacific Ocean contains - - - - 3161861 “ 
The land of the world amounts to” - - - - 265°9233 «“ 
