To
which no credit was given; and that owing to the imperfect mode formerly
used to determine the longitude, some, from being laid down wrong, were
afterwards claimed as entirely new discoveries.
We have stated that this remark is particularly applicable to Australasia:
to the progress of geography in this division of the globe (including under
that appellation, besides New Holland, Papua or New Guinea, New Britain,
New Ireland, Solomon's Isles, New Caledonia, New Zealand, &c.) we are now
to direct our attention; and the truth of the remark will soon appear to be
confirmed in more than one instance.
One of the objects of Rogewein, a Dutch navigator, who, sailed from
Amsterdam in 1721, was to re-discover Solomon's Islands, and the lands
described by Quitos. In this voyage he visited New Britain, of which he has
enlarged our information; and be discovered Aurora Island, and a very
numerous archipelago, to which he gave the name of the Thousand Islands.
Captain Carteret, who sailed from England in 1767, along with Captain
Wallis, but who was separated from him in the Straits of Magellan,
discovered several isles in the South Pacific, the largest of which there
is little doubt is that which was visited by Mandana in 1595, and called by
him Santa Cruz.
