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The principal small detached reefs within the lagoon-channel have in this instance been represented. HOGOLEU, or ROUG, in the Caroline Archipelago; taken from the "Atlas of the Voyage of the 'Astrolabe," compiled from the surveys of Captains Duperrey and D'Urville; the depth of the immense lagoon-like space within the reef is not known.
When the Astrolabe had reached the anchorage, after her fortunate escape from the perils from contrary winds, currents, and rocks, which had beset her course, she was at once positively overwhelmed with the offer of an incredible quantity of stores, fruits, vegetables, fowls, and pigs, which the natives were ready to dispose of for next to nothing.
On this occasion also we had a full view of the whole of Mount Astrolabe, which although 3,824 feet in greatest height, and appearing to D'Urville as he ran past to be the highest land on this portion of the coast, is rendered quite insignificant by the lofty though distant range behind.
This work is divided into eight parts, devoted respectively to theology, astronomy, pharmacy, hygiene, venereal diseases, botany, cosmography, and chemistry. It is illustrated with several plates, among them the picture of an astrolabe and one of the human body treated as a house.
Very desirous of being the author who should designate the other polar star of the firmament, I lost, many a time, my night's sleep while contemplating the movement of the stars around the southern pole, in order to ascertain which had the least motion, and which might be nearest to the firmament; but I was not able to accomplish it with such bad nights as I had, and such instruments as I used, which were the quadrant and astrolabe.
Low exposed, and strewn with rocks which serve as landmarks, there were but few dangers to be encountered here. Magdalena Island, Gente Grande Bay, Elizabeth Island, and Oazy Harbour, where the camp of a large party of Patagonians was made out with the telescope, and Peckett Harbour, where the Astrolabe struck in three fathoms, were successively passed.
The two ships were the Boussole and the Astrolabe, the French expedition under the illstarred La Pérouse. Phillip was at Port Jackson selecting a site for the settlement, and the English ships, before the Frenchmen had swung to their anchors, were on their way round to the new harbour.
On cloudy days, and during dark, stormy nights, when the sun and stars could not be seen, the sailors could now keep on their way, far from land, and still know in which direction they were going. The other invention was that of the astrolabe.
Taking turns as usual with Rodier at the wheel, he was able to get a few hours of sleep; about an hour and a half after daybreak he descried the strange shape of Mount Astrolabe towering nearly four thousand feet into the sky, and in less than a quarter of an hour afterwards he came to the coast, a little to the west, as he judged, of Port Moresby. The aspect of the coast was far from inviting.
At some distance inland I took up a peculiar-looking seed; one of the natives, thinking I was going to eat it, very earnestly urged me to throw it away, and with signs gave me to understand that if I ate it I should swell out to an enormous size, and die. We walked about seven miles through bush, and then began the ascent of one of the spurs of the Astrolabe.
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