Identifying The Secondary Discoverers
| Island Name | Location | Reynold's comments |
|---|---|---|
| "Phenix Island"* | 2°35'S, 171°39'W | "small and sandy, three miles in circumference" |
| "Mary Balcout's Island"* |
2°47'S, 171°58'W | "Surrounded by a reef twenty leagues in circum- ference, with only four openings where boats can enter" (this is an almost identical position to "Mary Island" shown on Norie's map of 1825; similar to Canton Is.) |
| "Barney's Island"* | 3°9'S, 171°41'W | "a lagoon, twenty miles in circumference" (Possibly another sighting of Canton Is.) |
| "Birney's Island" | 3°30'S, 171°30'W | "Discovered by Capt Emmert; found on charts" |
| "Sidney's Island" | 4°25'S, 171°20'W | "Discovered by Capt Emmert; found on charts" |
| "Sidney's Is." (2) | 4°30'S, 171°20'W | |
| "Sidney's Is." (3) | 4°29'S, 171°20'W | |
| "New Nantucket" | 0°11'N, 176°20'W | "Not on charts" |
| "Gardner's Island" | 4°30'S, 174°22'W | "Not on charts; discovered by Capt Coffin, on Ganges". |
| unnamed | 3°14'S, 170°50'W | |
| unnamed | 3°33'S, 173°44'W | |
| unnamed | 3°35'S, 170°20'W | |
| unnamed | 4°45'S, 174°40'W | |
| unnamed reef | 5°30'S, 175°W | "Not on the charts". (possibly Carondelet Reef) |
| *Reynold's suggests that since these three have similar coordinates, they "are probably the same as Birney's Island" |
||
Commissioned by the U.S. Navy in 1828 to compile a survey of American discoveries in the South Pacific, J.N. Reynolds interviewed several New England whalers, inspecting their logbogs, charts and documents. His report included at least 13 islands fitting roughly within the Phoenix group, but the coordinates he gave do not always compare to the now-established coordinates.
Further confusion regarding the initial discoveries is provided by other contemporary reports of the islands: Frenchman Louis Tromelin reported his 1823 discovery of Phoenix island at 3°42'S, 170°43'W, while cartographer John Arrowsmith plotted it 12 minutes further north; a rediscovery of Sydney is at 4°26'30", 171°18'. The same year, James Coffin recorded "Enderby's Island" at 3°10', 171°10. This clearly illustrates "the impossibility of deciding who discovered which of these...islands, and when...."
Contemporary reports and modern analysis provide conflicting evidence regarding the identification of the initial discoverers, a state of affairs only complicated by the numerous names given to the atolls.
The name "Phoenix" appears to have been first applied to the whole group by the US Exploring Expedition, from the island of that name reported within the group.
Read more about this topic: Phoenix Islands, History of The Islands
Famous quotes containing the words identifying and/or secondary:
“And the serial continues:
Pain, expiation, delight, more pain,
A frieze that lengthens continually, in the lucky way
Friezes do, and no plot is produced,
Nothing you could hang an identifying question on.”
—John Ashbery (b. 1927)
“Words are always getting conventionalized to some secondary meaning. It is one of the works of poetry to take the truants in custody and bring them back to their right senses.”
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)