NEW AMSTERDAM.

South Canterbury Times, Issue 2235, 17 May 1880, Page 3

NEW AMSTERDAM.

The island of Amsterdam, on which the captain of the British ship Vancouver saw smoke and lights on the 16th December last, which led him to believe that, as the island is known to be uninhabited, the crow of a shipwrecked vessel, probably the Knowslcy Hall, had found refuge on it, is the northernmost of an isolated group lying in the South Indian Ocean, in about the same latitude as the Cape of Good Hope and the south-western corner of Australia, and about midway between the two points,, but somewhat nearer the latter than the former. The island was, as far as is known, first seen in 1623 by the Dutch ship Lcydon ; and in 1638 it was named Now Amsterdam Island by the famous Antonio Van Diemen, after the ship in which he was sailing when he saw it, and which was called the Nieu Amsterdam. It was visited in 1837 by Captain Wickham, in Her Majesty’s ship Beagle, and is stated to he 2685 feet high, four miles long from cast to west, and about four miles wide from north to south. The island is in parts covered with a light sandy soil, producing tall grass and shrubs, and there is a small drain of water half a mile inland on the leeward side of the island, hut otherwise there is little on it to support a shipwrecked crew.