2-981-980 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Hog Island (one of the Crozet Group), from sketches by Captain [William] Ashby, late of the ship City of Auckland, 1876. 'These islands are remote from any other land, and quite uninhabited...Dangerous as the group is, it is nevertheless frequently approached by outward-bound vessels, as this affords them an opportunity of testing the accuracy of their chronometers. At certain seasons of the year fog and ice are met with in this neighbourhood, which materially increases the dangers of an Australian passage...The Crozet Isles were discovered by Marion du Fresne, in command of a French expedition, so long ago as January, 1772; but, that unfortunate commander being shortly afterwards massacred in New Zealand, nothing was known of their discovery until three years afterwards'. From "Illustrated London News", 1876.