Great care has been taken to make the charts and the nautical part of the narrative coincide; if there should be any difference, which it is hoped will not be the case, the charts are to be confided in, as of unquestionable authority. By the charts, as well as by the narrative, especially by that on which the tracks of the several vessels are marked it will be seen how far the existence or non existence of a southern continent is already ascertained, and what land has in the course of these voyages been first discovered. The charts also will at one view prevent any mistake which might arise from the same name having been given to different islands by the several Commanders in these voyages, without the trouble of comparing the latitudes and longitudes assigned them in the narrative.

As it is but a very few years since the existence of a race of men above the common stature upon the coast of Patagonia, was the subject of eager dispute among all ranks of people in this country, I have brought together the whole of the evidence on the question, as I find it in a collection of voyages lately printed in France, under the title of "Histoire des Navigationes aux Terres Australes."

"It must be acknowledged, that the contrariety of the reports have been made, by ocular witnesses, concerning a fact easy to be determined, does not deviate less from the common course of things than the gigantic stature of the people in question. It appears, that during an hundred

Voyaging Accounts