OCR Text |
Show 208 CARRINGTON ISLAND. the remainder of this part of the work from the eastward, employing mules, if possible, to furnish the party making it with provisions and water. Both parties, therefore, proceeded to Carrington's Island, which we reached late in the afternoon, effecting a landing on its southern shore. It rained heavily and was very cold, with a gale from the northward; and we landed wet and almost frozen, having spent one of the most disagreeable days we had yet endured upon the survey. Continually baffled by shoals, which could not be seen until the boat grounded upon them, the whole day had been consumed in making a distance which, under ordinary circumstances, might have been accomplished in a few hours. The two following days were occupied in the survey of this island, and of a small one about five miles to the northward of it. The water between them is quite shoal, the deepest being only six and a- half feet. The station previously erected upon the summit of Carrington's Island had been torn down, doubtless by some wandering Indians, as we saw the remains of their fires in the immediate vicinity. They were probably attracted by the cloth with which it was covered, and must have reached it by wading and swimming to the island from the mainland. The slate found when we first landed upon this island abounds also in various localities. Quartzose rock, generally with a dip of 5° to the south- east, was observed in large boulders on the southern slope, veined with thick seams of white quartz. Limestone was also found on the south- west portion of the island, near the base of the hill. On the north- east point was an outcrop of quartzose rock plentifully seamed with white and ferruginous quartz. Striated talcose slate, very much contorted, occurred in the centre of the island, and, to the west, gray granite, with quartzose conglomerate. The island is about eight miles in circumference, exclusive of the flats, which stretch out from it to the southward and westward, and which are more extensive than the island itself, being terminated on the west by the rocky reef passed on Friday night. It abounds in the sego, ( Calochortu* luteus,) which is beginning to seed, and, with its beautiful white, lily- like flowers, whitens and enlivens the gentle slopes of the island. A large number of other plants was also collected here, among which Cleomelutea, Si-dalcianeomexicana, Malvastrum coccineum, Stephanomeria minor. |