326 POLYNESIAN RESEARCHES. 
forms, built with stones, cut and fixed with great 
exactness and skill, forming, though destitute of 
cement, a strong durable pile. On these terraces are 
fixed colossal figures or busts. They appear to be 
monuments erected in memory of ancient kings or 
chiefs, as each bust or column had a distinct name. 
One of these, of which Forster took the dimen¬ 
sions, consisted of a single stone twenty feet high 
and five wide, and represented a human figure to 
the waist; on the crown of the head, a stone of 
cylindrical shape was placed erect: this stone was 
of a different colour from the rest of the figure, 
which appeared to be formed of a kind of cellular 
lava. In one place, seven of these statues or busts 
stood together :* one, which they saw lying on the 
ground, was twenty-seven feet long and nine in 
diameter. The largest, however, that La Perouse 
saw, was fourteen feet six inches high, and seven 
feet six inches in diameter. The inhabitants of 
many of the northern and eastern islands make 
stone representations of their deities, and of their 
departed ancestors, but none equal in size to those 
found in Easter Island. When Cook visited this 
island, the natives appeared to possess but few 
means of subsistence, and to inhabit very small 
and comfortless dwellings. A greater abundance 
appeared, when they were subsequently visited by 
the French navigator; their habitations appeared 
more comfortable, one of which was 310 feet long 
and ten feet wide. 
Easter Island is situated in 27 deg. 8 sec, 
south lat., and 109 deg. 43 sec. west long. It is 
called by the inhabitants Waihu. 
It has been already stated, that Magellan was the 
first European w r ho sailed from the Atlantic to the 
* Forster’s Voyage, vol, i. p, 586. 
