before my arrival there.[1] The account I received from Captain Ross was not matter of secrecy, and was of course spoken of by me without reserve at Honolulu. Thus, and through no other agency of mine, it found its way into a subsequent number of that paper; not, however, as an original article, but expressly as a mere confirmation of what had been previously published.[2] This Lieutenant Wilkes might have learned, if he did not, when he last touched at Oahu, a few days after I left there.
"In the next place, at page 20., he says, 'On my original chart I had laid down the supposed position of Bellamy's Island or land in 164 deg., 165 deg. E. longitude, and that it was traced off and sent to Captain Ross. I am not a little surprised that so intelligent a navigator as Captain Ross, on finding that he had run over this position,
- ↑ "To the Editor of the Polynesian.—Captain Ross, in the Erebus and Terror, had been as far south as 78 deg. 4 min., in long. 186 deg. 40 min. W. He made the south magnetic pole to be in lat. 76 deg., 154 deg. long. east. He discovered an active volcano, which he called Mount Erebus, in 77 deg. 31 min. S., 167 deg. 10 min. E.
"This information was brought to Mazatlan from Sydney by an English vessel; the writer had it from Dr. Wiley, of the English navy, who was a passenger on board, and who stated to him that he took this memorandum from Capt. Ross, who was at Sydney when he left.
"He further verbally stated that Captain Ross had sailed over the spot where land is supposed to have been seen by the American surveying vessels. They (the English vessels) saw vast numbers of seal and many whales.
G. W. P. Bissell.""Sandwich Islands, September 20, 1841." - ↑ Captain Aulick, of the Yorktown, confirms the intelligence in regard to Captain Ross's discoveries, published in No. 17. of our paper. He met that celebrated navigator a few months since at the Bay of Islands, and from him learned the discovery of two volcanoes as far south as 77 deg. One of them, which he named Mount Erebus, was 12,000 feet in height, and at the time he saw it in active operation, affording a most magnificent spectacle to the crews of both vessels: the other, whose altitude was 10,000 feet, was named after his consort, the Terror. Captain Ross had received the chart sent him by Captain Wilkes, and had cruised over a space of 50 miles in extent in either direction, where land had been laid down by the latter navigator, and found nothing but clear sea.—Polynesian, Oct. 15th, 1841.
