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The chart in Krusenstern's "Atlas" shows that these islands are not encircled, and as coral appears from the works of Surville, Bougainville, and Labillardiere, to grow on their shores, this circumstance, as in the case of the New Hebrides, is a presumption that they are fringed.
In the Indian Archipelago, at the island of Java, Labillardiere saw, between Surabaya and Samarang, little square and reddish cakes exposed for sale. These cakes called tanaampo, were cakes of clay, slightly baked, which the natives eat with relish.
In the expedition of d'Entrecasteaux, a common swallow was seen 60 leagues distant from Cape Blanco; but this was towards the end of October, and M. Labillardiere thought it had newly arrived from Europe. We crossed these latitudes in June, at a period when the seas had not for a long time been agitated by tempests.
According to the account given by Labillardiere, confirmed by the information given by Mr. Hekmeyer, the figures are often craunched by women and children, to the latter of whom they serve as dolls, toys, and even money-boxes, as shown by the slits formed in the upper part of the larger objects, which are usually hollow.
Watery and heated vapours issue at intervals from several crevices in the ground, and the thermometer rose to 43.2 degrees. M. Labillardiere had found the temperature of these vapours, eight years before us, 53.7 degrees; a difference which does not perhaps prove so much a diminution of activity in the volcano, as a local change in the heating of its internal surface.
Labillardiere, in his Voyage in Search of La Pérouse, says that one of the officers of the Pandora assured some of the people of the La Pérouse expedition, whom they had met at the Cape, that Bligh's ill-treatment of the Bounty's people was the cause of the mutiny.
When he made this voyage, therefore, the Admiral was not Bruny D'Entrecasteaux, a form which implied a territorial titular distinction; but simply Citizen Dentrecasteaux. The name is so spelt in the contemporary histories of his expedition written by Rossel and Labillardiere. It would not have been likely to be spelt in any other way by a French officer at the time.
Still proceeding westward we come to the NEW HEBRIDES; on these islands, Mr. Respecting SANTA CRUZ, and the SOLOMON ARCHIPELAGO, I have no information; but at New Ireland, which forms the northern point of the latter chain, both Labillardiere and Lesson have described large beds of an apparently very modern madreporitic rock, with the form of the corals little altered.
M. Labillardiere has seen it, on the edge of the crater of the peak of Teneriffe, at 18.7 degrees, though he had used every possible precaution to avoid the effect of accidental causes. On the summit of the Peak, we beheld with admiration the azure colour of the sky. Its intensity at the zenith appeared to correspond to 41 degrees of the cyanometer.
Several capital works of the historic kind have made their appearance in France within the last ten years; but, with the exception of those of celebrated voyagers or travellers, such as LA PEROUSE, BAUDIN, SONNINI, LABILLARDIERE, OLIVIER, ANDRE MICHAUD, &c. those whose object has been to treat of the arts, sciences, and manners of Greece, such as the travels of Anacharsis, of Pythagoras, or of Antenor; those whose subject has not been confined to France, such as the Precis de l'histoire generale, by ANQUETIL; people ought to be on their guard against the merit even of productions written mediately or immediately on the revolution, its causes, and consequences.
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