134 
VOYAGE OF THE POTOMAC. 
[February, 
lish, and latterly by our own countrymen ; yet its breadth in par- 
ticular has not been ascertained with that degree of accuracy, and 
in a sufficient number of places, to afford data from which the su- 
perficies of the island may be computed. As it is delineated on 
Blackford's chart of the China Sea, published in 1816, and which, 
he says, is " drawn from the best and latest authorities," its di- 
mensions L"ar exceed those above-mentioned ; for its greatest 
breadth, as there represented, being from Indrapoor Point on its 
southwest coast, across to the mouth of Dancer river on its 
southeast side, covers more than two hundred and fifty miles, ac- 
cording to his scale of degrees ; while its length, by the same 
computation, exceeds one thousand. 
The general direction of this elongated and comparatively at- 
tenuated island, is from northwest to southeast, extending across 
the equator, which divides it into two nearly equal parts : its north- 
western extremity, which is Acheen Head, being in latitude 5° 53' 
north, and its southeastern extremity, which is Hog Point, bound- 
ing the Strait of Sunda, in latitude 5° 56' south. Acheen Head 
is in longitude 95° 34' east, and Hog Point in 105° 50' east. Thus 
it appears that the Island of Sumatra extends across more than 
eleven parallels of latitude, and more than ten meridians of lon- 
gitude. Its central point, which is directly on the equator, and 
is that of its greatest breadth, is in longitude 102° east. Quallah- 
Battoo is in latitude 3° 20' north, longitude 96° 30' east. 
The whole of the southwest coast of Sumatra is washed by 
the waters of the great Indian Ocean ; the northwestern point 
of the island stretching into the Bay of Bengal. Its opposite or 
northeastern shore, or so much of it as lies in the' northern hemi- 
sphere, forms one side of the Strait of Malacca, which separates 
the island from the Malay peninsula on the east ; while that por- 
tion of the same coast which extends into the southern hemi- 
sphere, is washed by waters flowing through the Straits of Sabon, 
Lingin, and Banca. The Strait of Malacca, at its northern en- 
trance, is abput one hundred and fifty miles in width, but gradually 
contracts as it extends to the southeast, until the distance across, 
at its southern entrance, a little north of the equator, is less than 
forty miles. Two degrees south of the equator, on the northeast 
of Sumatra.,' is the Island of Banca, and the strait of the same 
name. This island was ceded to the British in the year 1812, 
