it; for, with the characteristic jealousy of the nation, access to its shores was denied to strangers almost without exception. An intelligent and zealous navigator, how ever, lieutenant John Moss, of the British navy, then commanding the ship William on the southern whale and seal fishery, visited both Juan Fernandez and the adjacent island of Masa Fuero, in the year 1792. It is from his MSS. that the following account of the modern state of those islands is given, and may be not unacceptable to the public, contrasted with the accounts which have appeared of its former state, when uninhabited and uncultivated.

Juan Fernandez lies in latitude 33° 40′ S. and 80° 30′ W. from Greenwich*. In making this island captain Moss first stood along the west side of it, and at noon came abreast of the north point. He was not aware of its having been settled by the Spaniards, and went in the boat to see if there was a safe anchorage, and to catch fish. In hauling round the north-west point, he was surprized to find the place fortified, and a small village in the valley. He immediately landed, and applied to the governor for leave to anchor and to fish. Neither request, however, formally granted; but getting into a position where none of the guns could bear on the boat, he caught as many fish as served the whole ship's company.

was

In making the island from the westward, it appears elevated at the north end, and slopes away towards the south, with a remarkable islet or large rock detached about half a mile off the south point. At a distance the whole island appears like an entire rock; but on a nearer approach the intersecting vallies discover themselves, and display a fine

* Dampier assigns its situation in 34° 45′ S. latitude, 84° W. longitude; but the publiser of Anson's Voyage, as well as captain Sharp, placing it in the latitude of 33° 40′, are confirmed by captain Moss.

scene of verdure, being covered with wood. The west side affords no anchorage, nor any landing-place, the cliffs rising almost perpendicu larly from the sea. When abreast of the north-west point, the first valley or landing-place opens where there is anchorage in fourteen fathom water, but quite in an open and exposed situation. Here, the Spaniards have a guard-house and one gun. About half a mile to the east-north-east is the great bay (Cumberland bay of the buccaneers), which is land-locked from east to north-west by west; but there is no anchorage in less than forty fathoms, till within half a cable's length of the shore. The town or village is very pleasantly situated in a fine valley between two high hills. A battery of five guns is placed just round the west point of the harbour, and commands the road, though it is very possible to land without a gun being brought to bear on the boats. This battery is built of loose stones, piled up breast high, and forming embrazures, without mortar or any kind of cement. On the left of the valley, on a little eminence, another battery was then constructing of masonry; it has two faces, with fourteen embrazures in each, one face pointing to the anchorage, and the other flanking the village; there were only five guns mounted on that side which faces the road, and one on the other. By cutting a serpentine path along the side of the western hill, two small guns have been got to the top of it. According to the report of the commandant, however, the whole force on the island, in January, 1792, consisted of six soldiers, and forty of the settlers armed and trained. Captain Moss was not at that time permitted to refresh his crew at Juan Fernandez. He saw great numbers of goats on the sides of every hill, and regretted much that he could not be allowed to stay, on account of the progress of the scurvy on board his ship, which would have been speedily ar rested by the fresh venison, fish, and vegetables to be obtained there.

On the 15th of November, 1792, however, he touched a second time at Juan Fernandez, and when within three miles of the great bay, went on shore to obtain the governor's permission to cut wood. This time leave was most readily granted by the governor, don Juan Calvo de la Canteza, who supplied all the wants of the English as much as was in his power. He ordered his own people to assist in cutting wood, and his oxen to draw it to the water side. A small present, which captain Moss, from his nearly exhausted stock, made to the governor in return for his civilities, consisted of a dozen of wine, a dozen of plates, two dishes, half a dozen of wineglasses, a small pot of pickles, and a pair of new boots. In return he presented captain Moss with a loaf of sugar, four fine sheep, a large quantity of vegetables, milk, and as much craw fish as he wanted. He also allowed him to purchase the flesh of two bullocks jerked, which cost a mere trifle.

There are about forty houses in the town, and several in different parts of the island. Every house has a garden, with arbours of grape vines, forming a delightful shade. Figs, cherries, plumbs, and almonds appeared, all green, and abundance of potatoes, cabbages, onions, thyme, and other vegetables and herbs; but none of them in perfection, as a kind of grub is said in a great measure to destroy the kitchen gardens.

The dress of the women is very singular they wear a petticoat which reaches only a little below the knee, and which is spread out by a hoop at the bottom to a great distance round them, leaving the legs entirely exposed, and, were it not for the drawers they wear, all below the waist might be seen when they stoop. They wear long hair, plaited into forty or fifty small braids, which hang straight down the back. This dress, the governor stated, was likewise that of the ladies of Peru and Chili. In every house that captain Moss entered, he was presented by the women with maté, the infu

sion of the herb of Paraguay, which they suck up through a pipe or tube, which serves more than one person, and is handed over from one to the other. The women were in general handsome, and every house swarmed with children. In one to which captain Moss paid a visit, there was a young woman only twenty years of age, who had six children, and was again pregnant.

Strangers who fall in with Juan Fernandez and Masa Fuero may mistake the one for the other, as they both lie in the same latitude, though they are very different. The north end of Juan Fernandez is highest, while Masa Fuero is lowest to the north. This circumstance, and the small island which lies off the south end of Juan Fernandez, are distinctive marks to be depended on. The two islands lie eighty miles from each other, but one has been seen from the other in a clear day.

The island of Masa Fuero is uninhabited, except by seals and goats. It lies in latitude 33° 41′ south, and longitude 81° 40′ west. There is no practicable landing-place on the north end of the island, on account of the prodigious surf; and on the east side, where captain Moss landed, it is so bad, that the people were obliged to swim through the surf, after procuring some boatloads of seal skins. Seals abound here, and the shores are covered with them. There is likewise plenty of wood, but difficult to be got off: in one of the vallies four or five cords of wood were found, which the heavy surf prevented them from getting away, as it probably had done the persons who cut it. The wood is principally a kind of red cedar, and a sort of hard yellow wood like box, capable of taking a fine polish. During the time the Willian remained at the island, goats enough were caught to afford the crew a constant supply of fresh provisions; and abundance of fish may likewise be taken in a very short time. Captain Moss saw large and small hawks there; the

ments, I felt no hesitation to undertake a nocturnal voyage. I ascend ed from Tivoli, at 11 at night, under the Russian flag, as a token of peace. There was not any decided current in the atmosphere, but only undulations, which tossed me about, I believe a great part of the night. To this it was owing, that I was first carried towards St. Cloud, and afterwards brought back over Vincennes, in a diametrically opposite direction. How favourable this circumstance would have been to the speculations of those who pretend to direct balloons! I was in the full force of my ascension when the fire-works of Tivoli were let off; the rockets scarcely seemed to rise from the earth; Paris, with its lamps, appeared a plain, studded with luminous spots. Forty minutes after my departure I attained an elevation of 2200 fathoms; the thermometer fell 3 degrees below 0. My balloon dilated considerably as it passed through a cloud; in which the lights lost their brilliancy, and seemed ready to be extinguished. It was as urgent to give vent to the hydrogen gas, dilated to such a degree as to threaten to burst the balloon, as it was interesting to collect some of the air of this region. Both these operations I performed at once without difficulty; and the emission of the gas brought me to a milder region.

At 12 o'clock I was only 600 fathoms from the earth, and heard the barking of dogs. A quarter of an hour afterwards I lost sight of all the lights on the earth, grew extremely cold, and could no longer perceive the stars, doubtless on account of the clouds.

At one in the morning, the cold still continuing, I was carried to a higher elevation; the hydrogen gas again expanded. About two, I perceived the stars, and saw several meteors dancing about the balloon, but at such a distance, as not to give me any alarm.

At half after two, the day began to dawn with me, and having again descended, I perceived the earth,

which I had not before seen since my departure.

At a quarter to three, I heard country people speak, and remarking the illumination of my balloon. Having asked them, they informed me that I was over the department of L'Aisne.

The sun gradually approaching, afforded me, at half past three, the magnificent spectacle of his rising above an ocean of clouds. The warmth of his rays acting on the balloon, the hydrogen gas again expanded; the atmospheric air became more rarified, while there was nothing to add to the quantity of the counterbalancing weight. The consequence was a new ascension, during which I was tossed about Rheims and Chalons, and carried at four o'clock to an elevation of more than 8000 fathoms ; there, under a magnificent sky and a resplendent sun, I experienced a cold of ten degrees. The balloon dilated much more considerably than it had yet done. The temperature was insupportable; tormented by cold, hunger, and a disposition to sleep, I resolved to descend, in an oblique direction, which brought me to the ground in the commune of Courmelois, near the banks of the Vesle, five leagues from Rheims, not far from Loges, and 45 leagues from Paris, after a voyage of seven hours and a half.

The air collected forty minutes after my departure in a cloud, in which the lights lost their brilliancy, and seemed on the point of going out, presented, on analysis, no remarkable difference from the air taken on the surface of the earth. There was only a very small additional portion of carbonic acid, but not sufficient to produce any change in the state of my lights. It was nothing but the density of the clouds, ready to be converted into rain, that diminished their brilliancy. Though I was carried, at four o'clock, to the height of more than three thousand fathoms, my head was not so swollen but that I could put on my hat; on the contrary, I

felt such a pressure upon the temples and jaws, as to produce pain. The sun, at that elevation, lost none of his resplendence; I never beheld that luminary so brilliant; and the loadstone lost none of its magnetic virtues. Thus falls the system invented by M. Robertson, a few years since, and already discredited by reason; thus the story of swollen heads; of air without oxygen, collected by a living being; of the sun without resplendence; of the loadstone without virtue; of matter without gravity; of the moon the colour of blood; and of all the wonderful things invented by the same aeronaut, can, in future, find a place only in the wretched rhapsodies of the celebrated Kotzebue.

GARNERIN.

For the Literary Magazine.

ON THE PROBABLE PERIOD WHEN THE POTATOE PLANT WAS FIRST INTRODUCED INTO THE BRITISH ISLES.

THE potatoe now in use (the solanum tuberosum) was brought into England by the colonists sent out by sir Walter Raleigh, under queen Elizabeth's patent. Mr. Thomas Herriot, a mathematician, was aboard the first fleet, which returned to England on the 27th July, 1586, when the potatoe was probably first brought over: for Mr. Herriot, in an account which he published of the nature and properties of the soil of the country examined, which is printed in De Bry's collection of voyages, vol. I, under the article roots, describes potatoe by the name openawk (by which they were called in Virginia), "as round roots, some as large as walnuts, and others much larger, which grew in damp soil, many hanging together as if fixed ropes; which are good food either boiled or roasted."

Gerard, in his Herbal, published 1597, gives a figure of the patatoe,

under the name of potatoe of Virginia.

In the manuscript minutes of the Royal Society, Dec. 13, 1693, sir Robert Southwell, then president, informed the fellows, that his grandfather brought potatoes into Ireland, who first had them from sir Walter Raleigh. From which it appears that this root, shortly after its arrival in England, must have been sent to Ireland by sir Robert Southwell's ancestor, where it was cultivated as food, long before its value was known in England; for Gerard, in 1597, recommends the roots as a delicate dish, not as a common food.

The potatoe, however, came into Europe at an earlier period by another channel; Clusius, who resided at Vienna at that time, received this root in 1598 from the governor of Mons, in Hainault, who had it the year before from one of the attendants of the pope's legate, under the name of Taratoufli, and learned from him, that in Italy, where it was then in use, no one certainly knew whether it came from Spain, or from America.

Peter Ceica, in his Chronicle, printed in 1553, mentions, in the tenth chapter, that the inhabitants of Quito used for food, besides mays, a tuberous root which they called papas; and this Clusius supposes to be the plant he received from Flanders, which conjecture is confirmed by the accounts of other travellers. From these details it appears probable, that potatoes were first brought into Europe from the mountainous parts of Quito; and as the Spaniards were sole possessors of that country, there can be little doubt that they were first brought to Spain; but as it would take some time to bring them into use in that country, and afterwards to make the Italians so well acquainted with them as to give them a name, there is every reason to believe, they had been several years in Europe before they were sent to Clusius.

In South America the root is called papas, and, in Virginia, ope