Easter Island recent Discovery
The Easter Island recently discoveredHowever, a recent discovery by archeologists has made the island even more mystifying. Having dug around the moai, they found that they also had sculptured objects that had been hidden deeply under the earth, and these sculptures are 3-4x larger than what we see above the earth! These mystical petroglyphs were made by the Rapa Nui between 1250 - 1500 A.D. and the island lies 3,550 km western of the Latin Amerin.
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Discovering Easter Island
DISCOVERING EASTER ISLAND. Some of the former travellers in the Pacific question the honour of the discovery of Easter Island. Hispanic authors argue that the island was spotted by Mendana in 1566, but the record is by no means authentic and the notes obtained are not precise enough to identify the precise route this old sailor took.
Capt. Davis is attributed to Captain William Dampier, who was the first to see the island, and Lionel Wafer, who crossed with this daring sailor on the Batchelor's Délight, reports of the discovery in 1687: Tied to the south, 12° 30 min wide and about 150 miles off the shore, he suffered an seismic impact, which later corresponded to the devastation of Callao by an seism.
Sailing southwards and eastwards half eastern until we reached 27° C 20 min southwards as we dropped in about two hour before the start of the night with a small, low, sand island and could hear a great roar like that of the ocean hitting the coast just off the boat. So, we left by morning and then we were back with the country, which turned out to be a small shallow island, without any rock face.
West, about 12 miles, we saw a series of highlands that we considered an island because there were several divisions in the view. That country seemed to be about 14 or 16 miles in a row, and there were large herds of birds. I, and many of our men, would have created this country and gone on shore, but the master would not have allowed us to.
This small island carries 500 miles from Copiapó almost eastwards, and 600 miles from the Galapagos, under the line. Unfortunately, none of the travellers aboard Batchelor's Delight were allowed to end up on this uncharted island, nor is it mentioned in the stories of a monolith or uncommon structure that might have been seen from the shores.
While the obvious imprecision in the country's visual character may be due to the ship's strange attitude, it justifies Admiral Roggeveen's assertion that Davis' island was not the same as the one he found on 7 April 1722 and called Easter Island in memory of the date on which the country was spotted.
As we were approaching the country, we saw clearly from a close range that the descriptions of the sand and low islands were not in the least consistent with our discovery. Moreover, it could not be the same country that the aforementioned travellers say they had seen 14 to 16 miles ahead of them and near the highlands that Dampier called the coastline of the unfamiliar North.
It is clear that Easter Island cannot be the sand island described by Davis, because that was small and low, while on the other hand Easter Island is high and enthroned above the ocean and also has two peaks that rise above the flat part. According to the Netherlands tradition of the particular date, the commander of the three ships that made up his navy - the Arend, the African Galley and the Thienhoven - gathered in the town hall to take official decisions to discover the country.
On Easter Sunday, the meeting said that some 9 nautical mile away, of modest altitude and covering an area of about 6 mile. Because of the quiet climate, the ships could not anchor until the next morning, as the island was covered with tree cover but with rich soils that produced exceptionally thick banana, potato and beetroot.
There was unanimous agreement that both the distinction in position and the look of the country of Davis, the fact that the island was just being explored, could not be the same. The ships after the voyage from Easter Island stayed a few nights in the quest for the low sand island described by Davis, but not with great results.
Behrens, who is not reliable, refers to the discovery of Easter Island by Roggeveen on the date of the Lord's risen (April 6, 1722), at 27 degree southern breadth and 268 degree western longs. Capt. F. W. Beechey, R. N., commander H. M. S. Blossom (November 1825), who refers to the discovery of Easter Island, finds Davis' merit and gives the following reason for the conclusions:
If there had been such an island that would have responded to Davis' account, the geographicalists would not have been in the process of bringing their views on the discovery of Copiapó into line for long, as they would in all likelihood have dispensed with their opposition to the removal of Copiapó, taking into account its name.
There has been much discussion about the alleged discovery; and if the dates are so unsatisfying that one side can select the Felix and Ambrose isles for the country in hand and the other Easter Island, two places almost 1,600 leagues apart, they are unlikely to be quickly matched unless two isles are found that correspond exactly to Davis' descriptions and are in the correct width.
I would just like to say, without going into a matter that causes so much difficulty, that, given the fast currents near the Galapagos, which run through the entire Passat winds, albeit with reduced power, the mistake in Davis' calculations is no more than could have been made with a boring sailboat as it was.
Behrens, who was near Roggeveen, was driven 318 geographic leagues to the west of his alleged position in a brief run from Juan Fernandez to Easter Island. When M. La Pérouse arrived on the sandwich islands of Concepcion, who touched on his way to Easter Island, found a similar mistake of 300 mile in the course of this arc.
Davis was longer than one of these ships, or at least longer than the Blossom, when he crossed from the Galapagos to Easter Island, and it is therefore sensible to concede that he made a major mistake, especially since the first part of his journey led through a much more powerful flow.
However, if the mistake in the calculation of the flower is considered a reasonable amount and applied to the range indicated by Wafer, only 204 mile between it and the actual Easter Island location, added to the way the calculations were previously kept, does not go beyond the limits that could reasonably be attributed to these causes.
The Pérouse thought that the Felix and Ambrose Isles were under debate, and in order to agree their removal from Capiapó with that of Wafer, attributed to him a defect in a character in his text, without taking into account that it would have been almost impossibility for Davis to make a straight path from the Galapagos to these Isles (especially at the time when his journey was made),
but, on the contrary, that he would be forced to take a tour that would have made him much closer to Easter Island, and that Davis Dampier made known the discovery that coincided with that in Wafer's report. Changing a character, one has to admit, is quite random, since it has nothing else to endorse but the fact that the number of isles is the same.
Certainly an mistake has been made, but in admitting it, each of the parties can take it as an asset by interpretating the suspected defect in a way that would underpin its own view. The differences between Cook and Pérouse are very small, and they also differ from us in the geographic location of Easter Island.
At Cook, the degree of meridian is 109° 46 min 20 seconds, and after deduction of 18 min 30 seconds, due to certain adjustments on Fetegu Island, 109°, 27 min, 50 seconds remain western. The one of Pérouse, so the length of Concepcion to 72 degree 56 min 30 sec western, is 109 degree 32 min 10 sec western, and our own is 109 degree 24 min 54 sec western.
There is no doubt that the Dutch under Roggeveen were the first Europeans to arrive on the island. Of the unhappy ending of his voyage and the repression of his gazette for so many years, but little has been passed down to us in the way of describing the island as it then came about.
In 1770 the Spanish saw the island and named it St. Carlos. In March 1774 Captain Cook named it Easter Island and sent all expeditions ashore, but its trunk offers little in terms of its general look beyond the fact that it was dried up and devastated and had no value as a place of soak.
M. Bernizet, geographic geographer who came to the island in April 1786 with the La Pérouse exploration, carefully described its look, and after the end of the last millennium his records are sufficiently precise for normal use.