Lincoln Island

LINCOLN ISLAND, in lat. 16° 40ʹ N., lon. 112° 42ʹ E., is about 3 miles in circuit, surrounded by a reef to the distance of a mile ; it is low, covered with small brush-wood, and has a spring of excellent water near three coco-nut trees in its centre. There are 20 fathoms close to the rocks at the south and west sides, and the soundings appear to extend about 2 miles off, but the water is deep on the east side. This is the easternmost island of the Paracels. PYRAMID ROCK, in lat. 16° 36ʹ N., lon. 112° 37ʹ E., about 6 miles to the S.W. of Lincoln Island, has no soundings close to; but the pilot said that soundings were continued in a narrow line, from the south part of Lincoln Island to the shoal seen by the ship Bombay Merchant in 1800.

1843, James Horsburgh, “The Paracels, with the Banks and Dangers in the Northern part of the China Sea”, in The India Directory, or, Directions for Sailing to and from the East Indies, China, Australia, and the Interjacent Ports of Africa and South America: comp. Chiefly from Original Journals of the Honourable Company's Ships, and from Observations and Remarks, Resulting from the Experience of Twenty-one Years in the Navigation of those Seas, volume II, London: Wm. H. Allen and Co., →OCLC, page 358

LINCOLN ISLAND, the S.E. point of which is in lat. 16° 39ʹ 34" N., long. 112° 44ʹ 23" E., is 1¼ mile long, N.W. and S.E., three-quarters of a mile wide, and about 20 ft. high ; it is covered with brushwood, and surrounded by a coral reef, dry at low water, which extends 1¼ mile from its S.E. point, half a mile from its North and East sides, and about a cable's length from its S.W. side. A narrow coral shoal runs off to the southward from its S.E. point, which is said by Horsburgh to extend 11 miles ; time did not admit of its being properly examined by the Rifleman, but judging from the soundings that were obtained, the dangerous part of this shoal does not appear to extend farther than 3 miles from the island. Grood anchorage can be obtained in the N.E. monsoon under its lee in 8 to 10 fathoms, coral, about half a mile from the shore. The spring of excellent water in the centre of this island, mentioned by Horsburgh, is merely a well dug by the Hainan fishermen close to a stunted cocoa-nut tree, into which the salt water filters. PYRAMID ROCK bears S.W. ¼ W., distant 7½ miles, from the S.E. point of Lincoln Island, and 10½ miles N.W. by W. from the South end of the bank extending southwards from that island. Between Lincoln Island and the Pyramid there are depths of 27 to 31 fathoms. H.M.S. Dido, in 1844, observed a shoal about 10 miles to the eastward of Lincoln Island. It is shown on the chart as a doubtful danger in lat. 16° 45ʹ N., long. 112° 54ʹ E.

1878, Alexander George Findlay, A Directory for the Navigation of the Indian Archipelago, China, and Japan, 2nd edition, Richard Holmes Laurie, page 643

LINCOLN ISLAND LATITUDE 16° 40ʹ N., LONGITUDE 112° 44ʹ E. The eastern island of the Paracel group, about 2 kilometers long, with a maximum elevation of about 5 meters. It is covered with bushes and has a well in its center. Lincoln Island, according to Aso, has an area of 1,720,000 m², of which 756,000 m² are covered by phosphate.

1950, George Evelyn Hutchinson, “Guano Islands in the South China Sea, in the Seas of the East Indian Archipelago, and in the Adjacent Parts of the Indian Ocean”, in Survey of Existing Knowledge of Biogeochemistry. 3, The Biogeochemistry of Vertebrate Excretion (Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History), volume 96, →OCLC, page 280, column 1

According to Japanese sources, Peking has maintained some sort of naval bases on Woody (Yung-hsing) Island and Lincoln (Tung) Island in the eastern Paracels since at least 1958. Several patrol vessels and supply ships were sighted there in mid-1971, along with shore-based radar installations; and the flotilla that clashed with the Vietnamese in 1974 numbered seven ships, including Komar-class gunboats equipped with Styx missiles.

1977, Selig S. Harrison, “Danger Zones in the South China Sea”, in China, Oil and Asia: Conflict Ahead?, New York: Columbia University Press, →ISBN, →LCCN, →OCLC, page 192

However, with the potential for oil and the presence of fish in the vicinity, jurisdiction over these resources under an EEZ or Continental Shelf claim would be valuable. Macclesfield Bank would fall within such a claim radiating from Lincoln Island in the Paracel Group.

1985, Daniel J. Dzurek, “Boundary and Resource Disputes in the South China Sea”, in Ocean Yearbook 5, University of Chicago Press, →ISBN, →LCCN, →OCLC, page 272