[440] Several pages are here omitted, narrating nineteen days of voyaging, but containing nothing of importance or of interest. The Dolphin's course was over the Newfoundland banks, and then around the north of Scotland into the North Sea.
[441] Buss Island has a curious history. It was reported as discovered in 1578, and again in 1668 and in 1671. An elaborate map of it was then published, and for a hundred years it appeared on charts of the North Atlantic as a considerable island, about lat. 58° N., long. 28° W. from Greenwich. But it has no existence and, though volcanic subsidence is possible, it probably never did exist.
[442] Rockall, a lofty and rocky islet in the North Atlantic, lat. 57° 36´ N., long. 13° 41´ W.
[443] A remote island of the outer Hebrides, the westernmost of the group.
[444] Apparently this does not mean the island of the Hebrides now called Barra, but that called Bernera, west of Lewis—Barra Major on some contemporary maps.
[445] Fair Isle is a lonely island midway between the Orkney and Shetland islands. Sailing between these groups, the voyagers saw first Orkney, then Foula Island (here Falo), then Fair Isle. The manuscript contains at this point profile sketches of the islands of Fairhill and Foula.
[446] The Chamber of Amsterdam was one of the local component boards of the Dutch East India Company.
[447] "Sea Mirror or Shining Column," an atlas of marine charts published by Peter Goos of Amsterdam in various editions, in 1654 and later years.
[448] Dutch fishing-boats.
[449] England, rather. There is no such reef or shallow as is described below.