Background: It is not known when and by whom this
island was discovered, but under the
name of
Moni it appeared on a
Dutch chart of 1666. It was first
visited in 1688 by Dampier, who found it
uninhabited. In 1886 Captain Maclear of
H.M.S.
Flying Fish, having
discovered an anchorage in a bay which
he named Flying Fish Cove, landed a
party and made a small but interesting
collection of the flora and fauna. In
the following year Captain Aldrich on
H.M.S.
Egeria visited it,
accompanied by Mr. J.J. Lister, F.R.S.,
who formed a larger biological and
mineralogical collection. Among the
rocks then obtained and submitted to Sir
John Murray for examination, there were
detected nearly pure phosphate of lime,
a discovery which eventually led in June
1888, to the annexation of the island to
the British Crown. Soon afterwrds a
small settlement was established in
Flying Fish Cove by Mr G. Clunies Ross,
the owner of the
Keeling Islands, which
lie about 750 miles to the westward.
The island is now a territory of Australia
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