Page:Discoveries & surveys in New Guinea and the D'Entrecasteaux Islands.djvu/15



seems desirable to state, for the information of the general reader, that the line of New Guinea coast, first placed on the chart by H.M.S. "Basilisk," had never been visited, and was actually unknown as to its conformation (as far as I have been able to discover any record), up to the period of her first visit in 1873, between the wide limits of Heath Island and Huon Gulf.

None of the navigators who did good service in the South Seas and on other parts of the New Guinea coast, neared the coast-line laid down by the "Basilisk" within these bounds, a fact as singular as it is interesting.

By the courtesy of the present hydrographer of the Navy, I have been able to take from a chart, constructed in his department, the tracks of my predecessors in these waters, from which the appended table has been compiled, which will show the reader that up to the advent of the "Basilisk" in 1873, this portion of the coast had been avoided by common consent, with a sort of fatality; strange, indeed, when we consider the extent of coast -line thus lying un-