Page:A Voyage of Discovery and Research in the Southern and Antarctic Regions Vol 1.djvu/152

78 "The water finds an outlet by a watercourse down the S.E. side of the hill, forming a small cascade in its first descent from the lake.

"The ascent of the hill on the S.E. side is by a narrow gorge, three feet wide, nearly perpendicular, and through a mass of hard arenaceous rock, having a tendency to the prismatic form. On attaining the summit, a quantity of loose fragments of slate strew the surface. Near the centre, a basaltic dyke, three feet wide, and having a direction S.E. and N.W., divides an amorphous mass of arenaceous slate from the greenstone on the north side; the latter rock contains much hornblende, with a ferruginous-coloured surface. The base and sides are scattered over with loose pieces of slate, intermingled with masses of trap. There are three other gorges by which the hill may be ascended. The irregular structure of this hill, with its large 'crater-shaped' summit, and the confused intermingling of the trap and singular slate rock, which latter seem to be of an 'arenaceous' composition, indicate vast disturbance at the period it was thrown up from below.

"A little to the southward of this hill a bed of coal, one foot in thickness, and ten feet in length, breaks out in a cleft at the base of a hill along a watercourse having a S.E. and N.W. direction. The coal is very light and friable, with a beautiful black glossy fracture, and, like cannel coal, does not soil the fingers. It is covered by a porphyritic amygdaloid and greenstone rock, and not a vestige of shale or slate is to be found in the same hill.