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Show 162 CAREIN- GTOJf. ISLAND-^ HAT ISLAND* laminae.. 1 searched diligently, W could find no cubes frw,. although the rock was full of the siftall cavities from whiph they had either been ' dislodged or had. decayed under the influence of the weather. Abundance of the slate can be procured free from this objection; and by trial I ascertained that a nail could be driven through the layers almost as easily as through a shingle*. On the shores were large quantities of a deposite resembling hard clay, which had formed when soft upon the rolled stones of the beach, and, when hardened by the sun or other causes, had been broken off, retailing, like a hollow mould, the shape of the stone upon which it had been deposited. The island is surrounded by extensive shoals. The beach is gradually making to the south, and will doubtless join with the wide Sand- flats to the south and west before many years. *. . . At sundown we returned to the beach, whore we bivouacked on . some soft sand, partially protected from the searching wind by a thick' growth of grease- wood, which was abundant. Our fires were plentifully supplied from the' drift- w. o6d piled up on the shore. . Wednesday, April 10.- Up by- sunri? e. Breakfast, cold fried bacon> roasted heron's eggs, and eold water. Morning cool- wind from east, afterward shifted to north- east'and north. ' Started for a small island lying about'five miles to the northward, to erect a station upon it. We found it be a mere islet, One hundred feet in height, and about a mile in circumference, having a long, narrow tand- spit running off from it in a south- east direction for a mile and arhalf. 7 It is merely & pile of granitic conglomerate, with < tufa in large masses. Grease- wood seems to be the principal grGwth, and the whole island abounds in the wild onion, now vividly green, filling the. air with its odour. Two species of cactus were also seen. A cliff of slate rock occurred, preserving to a certain extent its laminated structure, but so burned, altered, aijd filled with pebbles as to be useless. The water, for a long distance around this islet, is shallow, more especially to the westward. Having completed the station at this point, we returned to Fr£- " mont's Island to cover t} ie station there with cloth, so as to render it visible from a distance.. After a row of tyrelte miles- we landed on the south- west beacH at noon. The water crossed Was at'first quite shallow, but gradually deepened to eighteen, twenty- four, twenty- seven, and thirty- three feet, and then moderately shdaled to Frlmont'g Island, being eighteeh feet deep within a hundred yferds of the shore. |
