I was now well assured that the discovery of Juan Fernandez, if any such
was ever made, can be nothing but a small island; there being hardly room
for a large land, as will fully appear by the tracks of Captain Wallis,
Bougainville, of the Endeavour, and this of the Resolution. Whoever wants
to see an account of the discovery in question, will meet with it in Mr
Dalrymple's collection of voyages to the south seas. This gentleman places
it under the meridian of 90 deg., where I think it cannot be; for M. de
Bougainville seems to have run down under that meridian; and we had now
examined the latitude in which it is said to lie, from the meridian of 94 deg.
to 101 deg.. It is not probable it can lie to the east of 90 deg.; because if it
did, it must have been seen, at one time or other, by ships bound from the
northern to the southern parts of America. Mr Pengre, in a little treatise
concerning the transit of Venus, published in 1768, gives some account of
land having been discovered by the Spaniards in 1714, in the latitude of
38 deg., and 550 leagues from the coast of Chili, which is in the longitude of
110 deg. or 111 deg. west, and within a degree or two of my track in the Endeavour;
so that this can hardly be its situation.
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