I have in vain consulted the works of Cook, Vancouver, La Peyrouse, and Lisiansky for any satisfactory account of the small islands and reefs which lie scattered in a northwest line prolonged from the Sandwich group and hence have left them uncolored, with one exception, for I am indebted to Mr. F.D. Bennett for informing me of an atoll-formed reef in latitude 28° 22', longitude 178° 30' West, on which the Gledstanes was wrecked in 1837. It is apparently of large size and extends in a northwest and southeast line; very few inlets have been formed on it. The lagoon seems to be shallow; at least the deepest part which was surveyed was only three fathoms. Mr. Couthony describes this island under the name of Ocean Island. Considerable doubts should be entertained regarding the nature of a reef of this kind with a very shallow lagoon, and standing far from any other atoll, on account of the possibility of a crater or flat bank of rock lying at the proper depth beneath the surface of the sea, thus affording a foundation for a ring-formed coral reef. [Illustration: VIEW OF OCEAN ISLAND, REEF, AND LAGOON, AS SEEN FROM THE SOUTH (The Island is at the lower edge of the circle.)] [Illustration: OCEAN ISLAND AS VIEWED FROM THE NORTH (The arrow shows where the Saginaw struck.)] The evening following the departure passed quietly in our wardroom quarters and in fact all over the ship. Officers and men were more than usually fatigued after the preparations for sea both on shore and on board. There was none of the general hilarity accompanying a homeward cruise. There was also a prevailing dread of a long and tedious journey of over three thousand miles, mostly to be made under sail, and we all knew the tendency of the old Saginaw in a head wind to make "eight points to leeward," or, as a landlubber would say, to go sideways. We occupied ourselves in stowing and securing our movables, and after the bugle sounded "Out lights" at 9 P.M. the steady tramp of the lookouts and their half-hour hail of "All's well" were all that disturbed the quiet of the night. The night was dark, but a few stars were occasionally visible between the passing clouds. The sea continued smooth and the ship on an even keel. When I turned in at ten o'clock I had the comforting thought that by the same time to-morrow night we should be heading for San Francisco. We were making about three knots an hour, which would bring Ocean Island in sight about early dawn, so that there would be plenty of time to circumnavigate the reef and get a good offing on our course before dark.