Page:A Voyage of Discovery and Research in the Southern and Antarctic Regions Vol 1.djvu/144

70 perfect safety, and will not find less than nine or ten fathoms until well within the reef.

"Betsy Cove, which lies in the head of Accessible Bay, is an excellent harbour, and has from five to seven fathoms water over a tough blue clay. It is the southernmost harbour in the coast north of Cape Digby, and is about eight miles from it.

"In passing Cape Digby, it will be necessary to give it a birth of three miles, to clear the spit of land that runs out from it to nearly that distance."

Christmas Harbour, situated at the northern extremity of the island, has an entrance of nearly a mile wide, between Cape François on the north and the "Arched" Point on the south, on which side is a small bay that somewhat increases the breadth for nearly half the depth of the inlet, when it suddenly contracts to less than one-third of a mile, and thence gradually diminishes to the head of the bay, which terminates in a level beach of fine dark sand, extending quite across, and of about four hundred yards in length.

The shores on each side are steep, and rise in a succession of terraces to the height of more than a thousand feet. The highest hill, which is on the north side of the harbour, attains an elevation of thirteen hundred and fifty feet: from its form it received the name of Table Mount. Its summit is a very distinctly formed oval-shaped crater, about one hundred feet across its major axis. On the north side of this hill are some perfect basaltic columns, very beautifully arranged, and numerous fragments of the same prismatic structure are