A History of Pacific Shipping

TN two bulky volumes, Captain F. * Rhodes, of Rockhampton, tells the story of shipping in the Pacific, from the first appearance of Europeans there, right up to the present time. The work is entitled Pageant of the Pacific, and it has been published by the F. J. Thwaites Publishing Co., Sydney, at two guineas for the two volumes.

The author devoted the last 20 years of his life to its compilation. It has no great literary value, and no attempt has been made to make a connected story of it; but within the two volumes is a list, in chronological order, of every shipping event in the Pacific—a stupendous collec tion of names and dates, with indexes which cover names of ships, names of names of persons, and names of There is also—arranged in al phabetical order—a list of the Islands groups of the Pacific and a further list of the names of individual islands, show ing in which group they are placed. There is a useful appendix which sets out in chronological order/ from

1788, the names of all English Secretaries of State for the Colonies, and of Gover nors of Australian States, New Zealand, and Fiji, Another tabulation of value to persons dealing with Pacific subjects shows what happened in Pacific exploration from the year 1524, when the Portuguese Meneses entered the Pacific, right up to the middle of last century.

With such a compilation as this before one, one can forgive the author’s short comings—which are chiefly that he, ap parently on many occasions, accepted unconfirmed statements in published books as fact, and mcluded the same in his own compilation. Taking one or two particular lines of inquiry, we checked through the indexes and found that he had perpetuated the errors of certain early writers. As apparently Captain Rhodes has examined thousands of vol umes in the course of his research, he has no doubt unconsciously brought into his work a number of inaccuracies which he would gladly have omitted.

But it would be improper to condemn or even criticise the work on that ac count. On the contrary, Captain Rhodes should be praised, because he has brought together in these two volumes an almost incalculable amount of data in a handy and accessible form. Any research worker dealing with Pacific subjects may save weeks and months of time by getting his line through Captain Rhodes’ indexes, and thence checking up the statements, dates, etc., in other books, to which the Pageant of the Pacific will guide him.

This is a work of reference which must find a place in the principal libraries of the world.