Page:Journal of the Royal Geographical Society of London, Volume 1 (2nd edition).djvu/230

202 and of tolerable quality, by digging holes through the sand into the coral rock.

The islands visited between Bow Island (which they quitted on the 20th February) and Otaheite were all of the same nature and formation as those already described, and furnished no additional information beyond the correct determination of their size and position. Among the number are two which were previously unknown: the largest of these, which was also the most extensive of their discoveries in the archipelago, Captain Beechey named Melville Island; and the other Croker Island; but the narrative contains no details of the appearance of these islands. Those whose position was determined were as follows:—

The discoveries of Cook and Wallis in the track followed by Captain Beechey are relatively correctly placed; but those of the latter are as much as forty miles in error in longitude, and several miles in latitude, which has occasioned two of them to be mistaken for each other by Bellinghausen, and one to be considered as a new discovery by Captain Duperrey; but Captain Beechey considers that there can be no doubt but that this navigator's Lostange Island is the same as Wallis's Prince William Henry's Island.

Of the thirty-two islands visited in succession, only twelve were inhabited, including Pitcairn Island; and the amount of the population altogether, Captain Beechey supposes, cannot possibly exceed 3100 souls, of which 1000 belong to the Gambler Islands, 1260 to Easter Island, leaving 840 persons only to occupy the other thirty.

Captain Beechey thinks that there is a great diversity of features and complexion between the natives inhabiting the volcanic islands and those of the coral formations—the former being a taller and fairer race. This, he remarks, may be referred to a difference of food, habits, and comfort; the former having to seek a daily subsistence upon the reefs, exposed to a burning sun, and