SOLOMON ISLANDS (Ger. Salomon 'mein), an archi pelago of the Western Pacific Ocean, included in Melanesia, and forming a chain (in continuation of that of the Admiralty Islands and New Mecklenburg in the Bismarck Archipelago) from N.W. to S.E. between 4o' and 162° 3o' E., 5° and i r° S., with a total land area of 17,00o sq.m.
History.—The Spanish navigator Alvaro Mendafia must be credited with the discovery of these islands in 1567, though it is doubtful whether he was actually the first European who set eyes on them. In anticipation of their natural riches he named them Islas de Salomon. The expedition surveyed the southern portion of the group and named the three large islands San Cristoval, Guadalcanal, and Ysabel.
Even the position of the Solomon islands was now in uncer tainty, for the Spaniards, fearful lest they should lose the benefits of the discoveries, kept secret Mendafia's narrative. The Solomon islands were thus lost sight of until, in i 767, Philip Carteret lighted on their eastern shores at Gower island and passed to the north of the group, without, however, recognizing that it formed part of the Spanish discoveries. In 1768 Louis de Bougainville found his way thither, discovered the three northern islands (Buka, Bougain ville, and Choiseul), and sailed through the channel which divides the two last and bears his name. In 1769 a French navigator, M. de Surville, was the first, in spite of the hostility of the natives, to make any lengthened stay in the group. He gave some of the is lands the French names they still bear, and brought home some detailed information concerning them, and their identity with Mendafia's Islas de Salomon was soon established by French geog raphers. In 1788 the English Lieut. Shortland coasted along the south side of the chain, and, supposing it to be a continuous land, named it New Georgia. In 1792 and 1793, d'Entrecasteaux sur veyed portions of the coast-line of the large islands. Dumont d'Urville in 1838 continued the survey.
Traders and missionaries now endeavoured to settle in the islands ; neither met with much success, and little was heard of the islanders save accounts of murder and plunder. In 1845 the French Marist Fathers went to Isabel, where Mgr. Epaulle, first
vicar-apostolic of Melanesia, was killed by the natives soon after landing. Three years later this mission had to be abandoned ; but in 1881 work was again resumed. In 1856 John Coleridge Patte son, afterwards bishop of Melanesia, had paid his first visit to the islands, and native teachers trained at the Melanesian mission col lege subsequently established themselves there. About this date, Benjamin Boyd, while cruising in the yacht "Wanderer," was kid napped by the natives and never afterwards heard of. In 1873 the "foreign-labour" traffic in plantation hands for Queensland and Fiji extended its baneful influence from the New Hebrides to these islands. In 1893 the islands Malaita, Marovo, Guadalcanal, and San Cristoval with their surrounding islets were annexed by Great Britain, and a delimitation of German and British influence in the archipelago was made by the convention of Nov. 14, 1899. The German Solomon islands were occupied by an Australian force in Sept. 1914, and under mandate from the League of Nations the islands were assigned to Australia in 1920. In 1927 an outbreak of the natives, resulting in the death of several missionaries, caused the imposition of martial law.
See H. B. Guppy, The Solo-mon Islands (1887), with references to earlier works; J. Lyng, Our New Possession, (Melbourne, 1920).
the common name for perennial herbs of the genus Polygonatum, family Liliaceae (q.v.), com prising about 3o species native to north temperate regions. The plant springs from a creeping, fleshy rootstock upon which the annual shoots in dying away each year leave curious seal-like marks, whence the popular name. Three species occur in Great Britain and two in eastern North America. The single erect or arching stem, 1 to 8 ft. high, bears ovate or lance-shaped, sharp pointed, sessile leaves in the axils of which appear narrow greenish, whitish or pinkish flowers, on slender, drooping flower stalks, followed by globular, pulpy, usually bluish berries. In the United States various species of Smilacina, a closely allied genus, are called false Solomon's-seal.