376 Account of the Discovery New South Shetland^ 
which is 3° to the eastward of the N. E. point of the Gulf, as 
assigned in the charts. His track then was to 
55"’ r S. Lat. W. Long. 
53" 56' » - 39" 24' - 
where he found a muddy bottom in 175 fathoms : hence he ar» 
rived at Willis’s Island and Georgia. 
In latitude 60" S. and long. 31* W. Captain Cook met with 
a heavy swell from the westward, a strong indication,” says 
he, that there was no land in that direction ; so that I think 
I may venture to assert, that the extensive coast laid down in 
Dalrymple’s chart of the ocean between Africa and America, 
and the Gulf of San Sebastian, does not exist.” 
It is difficult to conceive how so extensive a tract could ob- 
tain a place in the old charts, unless some authority had been 
offered for it. We are, however, ignorant of the authority, 
though, from the name of the Golfo de San Sebastiano, it may 
be presumed to have originated in the accounts of the Spa- 
niards. The particular formation of the land, — the existence 
of an island within the Gulf, called La Isla de Cressalina, — 
offer additional reasons for believing it had been seen. These 
considerations led Dr Forster, who in the Adventure had satis- 
factorily disproved its existence, as laid down in the charts, to 
draw a similar conclusion. He adds, “ I am inclined to believe 
that Sandwich Land has been discovered by those early navi- 
gators, who furnished the geographers with the Gulf of San Se- 
bastian, and the Island of Cressalina,” — ah observation now 
more applicable to the land seen by Mf Smith. In support of 
this opinion, it is worthy of remark, that the shape of the land, 
as 'described by Smith, bears a striking resemblance to that 
tract of coast laid down in the old charts. The islands in the 
latter bearing the same situation in regard to the mainland as 
Smith’s and Nelson’s Isles, the direction of the coast of the 
mainland bearing as well a W. S. W. direction in both instan- 
ces ; the headlands, too, of the old charts, strongly resembling 
the North Foreland, Williams’s and Smith’s Capes. The ex- 
istence of a gulf in New Shetland, similar to that of San Sebas- 
tian, is yet undetermined : it is, however, to be remarked, that 
Smith could not observe the land in the same relative situation. 
