394 STRONG CURRENTS— MASSACRE ISLANDS. [1830. 



is ripe for the harvest, and which would make returns of a thousand- 

 fold, both in a moral and commercial point of view. 



From Monteverdeson's Group we steered to the south-east, with a 

 fine breeze and cloudy weather. During the night we had the wind 

 from all points of the compass, accompanied with thunder and light- 

 ning, squalls of wind, and heavy falls of rain. At the same time we 

 noticed, in the wake of the vessel, besides the usual phosphorescent 

 appearance of the sea, some very brilliant coruscations, evidently pro- 

 ceeding from myriads of mollusca,* many of which we caught and 

 examined, and found them to be different from any that we had ever 

 seen. The only indication of life which they manifested was a slight 

 degree of swelling when molested ; they were generally about an 

 inch in thickness, and from three to five inches in length, enclosed in a 

 kkid of covering or outer skin, of a yellowish colour, and almost trans- 

 parent. 



May 2\st. — On the morning of Friday, the 21st of May, at four, 

 A. M., we crossed the equator, in long. 160° 11' E. On discovering, 

 by astronomical observations and by chronometer, that for the last two 

 days we had not made the easting which the log gave us by eighty-four 

 miles, and it being quite calm, we lowered the waist-boat, and tried the 

 current, which we found setting west-by-north, at the rate of two and 

 a quarter miles an hour. 



On the following day, Saturday, the 22d, being in lat. 2° 4' S., long. 

 158° 27' E., we found the current setting west-half-north, two and a 

 half miles an hour. We this day took the wind from east-south-east. 

 On Sunday, the 23d, we found the current setting to the west-by- 

 north half-north, three miles and a quarter an hour. On Monday, the 

 24th, we obtained several sights for the chronometer during the after- 

 noon, which told us the strength of the current had increased to nearly 

 four miles an hour. 



May 2ith. — To satisfy ourselves of the accuracy of the chronome- 

 ter, at sunset we lowered one of the waist-boats to try the current, 

 which we found setting nearly west-by-north, more than three miles 

 and three-quarters an hour. We now had a seven-knot breeze from 

 east-south-east ; and finding it \o be impossible to pass to the eastward 

 of Solomon's archipelago, on account of the strength of the currents, 

 I determined on passing through Bougainville's Strait, after examining 

 the Ontong Java Group. But on finding ourselves exactly in the 

 situation assigned to these islands, at nine, P. M., we bore up, and 

 ran to the west, with a fine breeze from east-south-east, and fair 

 weather. 



At half-past eleven, the man on the top-gallant yard saw land and 

 breakers at the same time. We immediately hauled on a wind to the 

 south, and at three, A. M., we tacked, and stood in for the land which 

 had been announced. At six, A. M., we were close in with a group 

 of small low islands that appeared to be entirely surrounded by a coral 

 reef, with the exception of two narrow openings, neither of which was 



* Mollusca.— An order of animals under the class vermes, in the Linnaean system, comprehend- 

 ing naked simple animals, not included in a shell, but furnished with limbs, as the slug, star-fish, 

 cuttle-fish, sea-urchin, &c. — Family Encyclopaedia. 



