Book excerpt: Excerpt from A Chronological History of the Discoveries in the South Sea or Pacific Ocean, Vol. 1: Commencing With an Account of the Earliest Discovery of That Sea by Europeans, and Terminating With the Voyage of Sir Francis Drake, in 1579; Illustrated With Charts To place the whole in the order of time, would be attended with this great inconvenience, that to obtain a satisfactory account of any one subject, it might be requisite to consult every volume in the collection, however extensive. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.