It will, I think, appear with equal evidence from the accounts of Roggewein’s voyage, that between the longitudes of 130° and 150° W. there is no main land to the northward of 35° S. Mr. Pingre, in a treatise concerning the transit of Venus, which he went out to observe, has inserted an extract of Roggewein’s voyage, and a map of the South Seas; and for reasons which may be seen at large in his work, supposes him, after leaving Easter Island, which he places in latitude 28 ½ S. longitude 123° W. to have steered S.W. as high as 34° S. and afterwards W.N.W.; and if this was indeed his rout, the proof that there is no main land to the northward of 35° S. is irrefragable. Mr. Dalrymple indeed supposes his rout to have been different, and that from Easter Isle he steered N.W. taking a course afterwards very little different from that of La Maire; but I think it is highly improbable that a man, who at his own request was sent to discover a southern continent, should take a course in which La Maire had already proved no continent could be found: it must however be confessed, that Roggewein’s track cannot certainly be ascertained, because in the accounts that have been published of his voyage, neither longitudes nor latitudes are mentioned. As to myself I saw nothing that I thought a sign of land, in my rout either to the northward, southward, or westward, till a few days before I made the east coast of New Zealand: I did indeed frequently see large flocks of birds, but they were generally such as are found at a very remote distance from any coast; and it is also true that I frequently saw pieces of rock-weed, but I could not infer the vicinity of land from these, because I have been informed, upon indubitable authority, that a considerable quantity of the beans called ox-eyes, which are known to grow no where but in the West Indies, are every year thrown up on the coast of Ireland, which is not less than twelve hundred leagues distant.

Voyaging Accounts