Page:A Voyage of Discovery and Research in the Southern and Antarctic Regions Vol 1.djvu/241

] made on board the ships, for here also we found a great amount of local attraction; the same instrument in different places giving widely different results, and proving how very liable to error all surveys made by compass must be, and especially so upon lands of volcanic formation; for, although so very remarkable in these islands, it may here be observed that there is scarcely any position on shore entirely free from this source of confusion; and even in our own country serious errors have been detected in surveys where the compass alone had been used.

Campbell Island was discovered in 1810, by Frederick Hazelburgh, in command of the brig Perseverance. He states that "the island is thirty miles in circumference, the country is mountainous, and there are several good harbours, of which two on the east side are to be preferred." The southern harbour of these two, in which we anchored, he named after his brig, "Perseverance Harbour."

The highest hill seen from the harbour is on its north side, and has an elevation of fifteen hundred feet. The shores on either side are steep, and rise abruptly to between eight and nine hundred feet. They are skirted by a belt of sea-weed, and the harbour is quite free from any danger except the shoal point on which the Terror grounded; so that a ship may run in or beat up with perfect confidence and safety. The hills from being less wooded have a more desolate appearance than those of the Auckland Islands, and although there is abundance of wood in the sheltered places, the trees nowhere