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Henderson Island (formerly also San Juan Bautista and Elizabeth Island) is an uninhabited island in the south Pacific Ocean. It is one of the world's last two raised coral atolls whose ecosystems remain relatively unaffected by human contact. Ten of its 51 flowering plants, all four of its land birds and about a third of the identified insects and gastropods are endemic – a remarkable diversity given the island's size.〔 Measuring by , it has an area of and is located northeast of Pitcairn Island. It has poor soil and little fresh water, and is unsuitable for agriculture. There are three beaches on the northern end and the remaining coast comprises steep (mostly undercut) cliffs up to in height. In 1902 Henderson was annexed to the Pitcairn Islands colony, now a South Pacific British Overseas Territory. It was designated a World Heritage Site by the United Nations in 1988. ==History== Archaeological evidence suggests that a small permanent Polynesian settlement existed on Henderson at some time between the twelfth and fifteenth centuries. The reasons for the group's disappearance remain unknown, but may relate to the similar disappearance of the Polynesians on Pitcairn Island, on whom the Hendersonians would have depended for many of the basics of life, especially stone for making tools. The Pitcairn Polynesians may in turn have disappeared because of the decline of nearby Mangareva; thus, Henderson was at the end of a chain of small, dependent colonies of Mangareva. A Spanish expedition led by the Portuguese sailor Pedro Fernandes de Queirós discovered the island on 29 January 1606 and named it ''San Juan Bautista;''〔Brand, Donald D. ''The Pacific Basin: A History of its Geographical Explorations'' The American Geographical Society (New York, 1967) p.136.〕 Captain Henderson of the British East India Company ship ''Hercules'' re-discovered the island on 17 January 1819 and named it ''Henderson Island; ''and'' ''on 2 March 1819 Captain Henry King in the ''Elizabeth'' landed on the island to find the king's colours already flying. His crew scratched the name of their ship into a tree, and for some years the island's name was ''Elizabeth'' or ''Henderson'', interchangeably. The Nantucket whaleship ''Essex'' was rammed by a sperm whale and sunk on 20 November 1820 (a report of which inspired Herman Melville to write ''Moby Dick'') and the crew arrived at Henderson on 20 December in three small whaleboats. They found the island's only known drinkable water-source – a brackish spring on the north shore, exposed at half tide – and ate fish, birds, eggs, crabs and peppergrass; but they had largely exhausted the ready food within a week and on 27 December the three boats set sail for South America, leaving behind Thomas Chappel, Seth Weeks and William Wright who had chosen to stay, and who survived until their rescue on 9 April 1821. In his account of the ordeal, Chappel reported having seen human skeletons in a cave. In August 1851 visitors from Pitcairn Island also found skeletons in a cave and wreckage on the adjacent beach. After a party of Pitcairners collecting miro wood re-discovered the skeletons in March 1958, a medical examination determined that the bones were of Caucasian origin, and they were then buried in a shallow grave inside the cave. Finally, an American survey team examined the bones in 1966 and buried them in five coffins in the left-hand corner of the cave, tightly jamming a large cross between the ceiling and the rock floor at the entrance. They concluded the remains were of five or six people, one of whom was between three and five years of age. It is presumed they were the survivors of a shipwreck who died of dehydration.〔Pitcairn Islands Study Center. (History of Government and Laws, Part 15 ) 〕 Henderson, along with Oeno and Ducie, was formally annexed to the British Empire in 1902 by Captain G. F. Jones who visited the islands in a cutter with a crew of Pitcairn Islanders; and in August, 1937, ''HMS Leander'' on a journey from Europe to New Zealand carried out an aerial survey of Henderson, Oeno and Ducie, and on each island a British flag was planted and an inscription was nailed up proclaiming "This island belongs to H.B.M. King George VI." A twenty-seven-year-old American, Robert Tomarchin, lived the life of a castaway on the island for approximately two months in 1957 accompanied by a pet chimpanzee, apparently as a publicity stunt, until people from Pitcairn rescued him in two longboats. In the early 1980s American businessman Arthur "Smiley" Ratliff expressed interest in establishing a home for himself with an airstrip on the island.〔 〕 The Pitcairn Island Council approved his plans in April 1981 but the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office overrode the decision and vetoed the proposed development after environmentalist groups had lobbied to protect the natural ecology and environment of the island. Henderson Island was listed as a World Heritage site in 1988.〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=UNESCO World Heritage listing )〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Henderson Island (Pitcairn Islands)」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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