[*] From the south pole up to the equator, it is only the small space occupied by southern Africa and by South America with which we are acquainted.

There is a vast extent, sufficient to receive a continent as large as North America, which our ignorance has filled only with water.

In Ludlow's maps nothing was still to be seen, in these regions, but water, except in that spot where the transverse parallels of the southern tropic and the 150th degree east longitude intersect each other.

On this spot were Ludlow's islands placed, though without any name or inscription whatever.
I needed not to be told that this spot had never been explored by any European voyager, who had published his adventures.

What authority had Ludlow for fixing a habitable land in this spot?
and why did he give us nothing but the courses of shores and rivers, and the scite of towns and villages, without a name?
As soon as Ludlow had set out upon his proposed journey of a fortnight, I unlocked his closet, and continued rummaging among these books and maps till night.