In Holland the last of those was a certain Jacob Roggeveen, a man of deep learning, for many years a member of the High Tribunal of the Indies, and a leader among his fellow-beings wherever he went. He had traveled a great deal, and he might have spent the rest of his few years peacefully at home, but when he was sixty-two years old the desire to learn more of the Southern Continent which had been seen, but which had never been thoroughly explored, the wish to know definitely whether there remained anything as yet undiscovered in the Pacific Ocean, drove him across the equator. With three ships and six hundred men he left Texel on the first of August of the year 1721, and the next year in February he was near Juan Fernandez in the Pacific Ocean. An expedition like this had never been seen before. All the experience of past years had been studied most carefully. It was known that people fell ill and died of scurvy because they did not get enough fresh vegetables. Wooden boxes filled with earth were therefore placed along the bulwarks of all the ships. In these some simple and hardy vegetables were planted. Instead of the old method of taking boxes full of bread which turned sour and got moldy, ovens were placed on board, and flour was taken along from which to bake bread. An attempt was made to preserve carrots and beets in boxes filled with powdered peat. People still fell ill during this voyage, but the wholesale death of at least half of the crew of which we read in all the old voyages did not take place. When Roggeveen reached Juan Fernandez he found the cabin of Robinson Crusoe just as it had been left in the year 1709. Otherwise the island proved to be uninhabited. On the seventeenth of March the ships continued their way, and a southern course was taken. Nothing was seen until Easter day, when a new island was found on the spot where an English map hinted at the existence of a large continent. This island, however, contained nothing except a few natives. It did not in the least resemble the unknown Southern Continent of which Roggeveen dreamed. Therefore he went farther toward the south. For a while he followed the route taken many years before by Le Maire. Some of the islands which Le Maire had visited he found on his map. Others he could not locate. Still others were now seen for the first time. It was a very dangerous sea to navigate. The Pacific Ocean is full of reefs. These reefs now appear upon the map, but even in this day of scientific navigation they wreck many a ship. On the nineteenth of April one of Roggeveen's ships ran upon such a hidden reef in the middle of the night. The crew was saved, and was divided among the other two vessels. The ship, however, was a total loss. Nothing could be saved of the personal belongings of the men and the provisions. It is a curious fact that the South Sea islands always have had a wonderful fascination for a certain kind of temperament. Many times while ships crossed the