According to the rule that officials declare turns taken to make biannual tour of Ulleungdo, an official letter was sent to Han Jang Guk to inform him of his duty. The following is the records of the inspection tour.
"On the early afternoon of April 21st we departed with a group of 80 people and provisions in four separate ships. In the beginning the weather was pleasant, but later by the early evening came a storm with thick fog and heavy rain. All of a sudden the four ships went in different directions from each other until we lost visual contact with each other. Amid this, (title) keeping his composure, put on his uniform to pray to the ocean before dumping a lot of food to feed the ocean god. Afterwards he told some (title) to hold up torches for a signal, and two other ships responded with their torches but the other ship's was not to be seen. Between three and five on the morrning of the 22nd as the high waves abated, far away in the South, were observed two boats with their sails up coming toward us when some (...), pointing to the East said "That thing looking like some cloud through the fog over there is probably a high peak of a mountain on an island"
Hearing this, (...) looked carefully and concluded it was a shape of an island (...) himself was beating the drum in person to encourage (..) and soon leading them to the West of this island, where the boats got moored. Checking around from the top of the mountain, there was a stream between the valley and the middle peak, about 30 ri, with its overlapping geography. And in this area were about sixty tracts of rice paddies along with the narrow gully and a waterfall.
To the left was Hweong-tu-gu-mi-gol, to the right was Byeong-Pung-Seok, and to the North Hyang-Mok-Jeong, where the aromatic trees were scarce because they had been cut down every second year. On the 24th upon arriving at Tong-gu-mi-jin, the way the valley lay looked like a log, and ahead of it was a rock. From that rock in the sea to the island was about 50 paces (bo) away. The rock was very high with cliffs all around. At the entrance of the valley there were layers of rocks. We managed to climb up there to find that it was a high mountain with a deep ravine. The trees were soaring to the sky and the weeds were so thick it was hard to get through.
On the 25th arriving at the entrance to the valley of Jang-jak-ji-po there was a bamboo field. The bamboo plants were sparsely scattered and most of them were quite short. After cutting the larger of them, we headed toward the southeast for Jeo-Jeong-Dong. From the bottom of the valley to the middle peak, which was tens of ri, lay three spacious lots which were utilized as dozens of rice fields. And to the front are three islands, Bang-Pae Do in the North, Jukdo in the middle and Ongdo in the East. The distance between these is only 100 paces each and the circumference of them is tens of pa each. However, these rocks were jagged and steep and looked very difficult to climb.
After spending the night there, on the following day, 26th, we went to Ga-ji-do where four or five sealions jumped out of the water in surprise. They looked like rhinos (musso) and two of them were killed by firing many shots at a time. The geographical features of Gu-mi-jin were most unusual, and about 10 ri into the valley still vividly remained the site of an old village. The mountains on both sides of the deep ravine remained were too steep to go up. Next, me made an inspection tour of Juk-am, Hu-po-am, Kong-am, Jeuk-san etc,. and headed for Tong-Gu-mi where we waited for the winds to let up.
The overall measurements around Ulleungdo Island are about 70 to 80 ri North to South, and about 50 to 60 ri East to West and all around it are piles of (layers of) precipices (steep rocky cliffs). There are old housing sites and lots that could be cultivated into that total about a couple of hundred. The most common trees are junipers, pine trees, mulberry trees, and hazel trees. The most common plants are dropwarts, mallows, mugwarts, ramies and paper mulberries. There were also other uncommon trees and plants growing whose names were unknown so they could not be recorded. As for birds, wild geese, hawks, seagulls, and white herons live there. In terms of haired animals, cats and mice inhabit the island. As for sea products, there were only sea weed and abalone.
Leaving on the 30th on a boat, the group returned home on the 8th of the following month, bringing back two sea-lion skins, three hweong-juks two pieces of rosewood seok-gak-ju and 5 twae and a map to the king...."
Next, this report is one of two inspections of Ulleungdo that clearly give the names of Ulleungdo's surrounding islets. In all probability Bang-pae-do is what is called Gwaneumdo Island on the northwest corner of Ulleungdo. The island of Jukdo that some Japanese assert is Usando is simply called Jukdo Islet. This concurs with another report made by Leekyuwon in 1880 that also mappped and stated the name of this rock was Jukdo Islet and not Usando. The last island's identity is unclear.
Another valuable piece of information given by Shim Ji-hyeon is about the topography of Jukdo Islet. Leekyuwon would state a century later, Jukdo Islet couldn't be climbed and was too rugged. Jukdo Islets walls are about 100 meters high and very sheer. Thus is was not plausible this island was used for mooring boats or living on when you also consider there was no fresh water to be found on Jukdo.
The last part of this document gives a brief explanation as to how they measured Ulleungdo. It seems that Korean surveyors measured around the island giving the values as a circumference. This method of measurement makes sense in that historical Korean documents describe Ulleungdo as 100ri (Sabang-baek-ri). Thus is could be that the island's dimensions were measured as they sailed around the island in all four directions of the compass and then added up the values to arrive at Ulleundo's area.
