Note 57 — VII.

Previous to the resuscitation, after considerable difficulty, of this important, indeed decisive document, by Mons. L. C. D. Van Dyk, among the archives of the East and West India Company of Amsterdam, of which he was Librarian, the utmost uncertainty prevailed as to the discovery, name, and geographical position of the two islands. Now, William Van Flaming, a Dutch navigator, was supposed to be the discoverer,—now, the hardy Van Diemen. Atlases, charts, and books of travels, spoke of the name St. Paul belonging, here to the northern island, there to the southern. This long-continued confusion of names had naturally left ample space for the most contradictory statements as to the position, conformation, and geological conditions of both islands. One traveller, for instance, describes Amsterdam as an island with good anchorage on the North side, and an extinct crater, into which ran a fissure, forming a natural link with the ocean; while, on the other hand, he described St. Paul as a desert island, with steeply sloping shores, which make it matter of difficulty, if not utterly impracticable, to effect a landing; while other voyagers, again, give directly contrary accounts of both islands. Compare the following:—"An authentic account of an Embassy from the King of Great Britain to the Emperor of China, together with a relation of the voyage undertaken on the occasion by H.M.S. Lion, and the ship Hindostan, E.I.C.N., to the Yellow Sea and Gulf of Pekin, as well as of their return to Europe, taken chiefly from the papers of H.E. the Earl of Macartney, &c., by Sir George Staunton, Bart. (London, 1797), vol. I., pp. 205-27."—"Rélation du Voyage à la recherche de La Pérous fait par l'ordre de l'Assemblée constituante pendant les années 1791-92, et pendant la 1re et la 2de année de la République Française. Par le citoyen La Billardière, Correspondent de l'Académie des Sciences de Paris. Au VIII. de le République Française. Tome I. pp. 120-123."—"Johnston, A.K., General Gazetteer of the World (London, 1855)."—"Hamburgh, James, India Directory; or, Directions for Sailing to or from the East Indies, China, Australia, and the adjacent parts of Africa and South America (London, 1855). 7th Edition, vol. I., p. 101."—"Voyage to the South Pole, and Round the World, by Captain Jas. Cook, R.N. (London, 1777)." An interesting and tolerably circumstantial treatise on these islands is also to be found among the transactions of the Imperial-Royal Geographical Society of Vienna for the year 1857, second division, pp. 145-56, by Mr. A. C. Zhishman, Professor of Geography and History, in the I. R. Nautical Academy at Trieste.