Page:A Voyage of Discovery and Research in the Southern and Antarctic Regions Vol 1.djvu/85

] against which the surf is continually breaking. These rocks having been considered remarkable, as not being of a volcanic nature, I made a full collection of specimens ; and although, certainly, no lava or igneous rocks have made their way to the surface, in evidence of their true origin, yet the whole group presents, at a single glance, the most striking effects of the agency by which they have been forced upwards. The confused mass is mingled together without the slightest approach to stratification; in many places, the altered appearance of the rocks, from the effects of heat, prove them to have been volcanic, differing from other volcanic islands in the Atlantic, only from the melted matter not having reached the surface, but remaining as it were capped by the bed of the ocean."

Our observations here gave for the magnetic dip 27° 8′ N., and the variation 13° 20′ W.

We judged it to be low water this afternoon at three o'clock, and to have fallen between five and six feet; but owing to the surf we were unable to determine these points with the desired accuracy. The annexed sketch by Mr. Dayman will serve to convey a good idea of the size and arrangement of these rocks.

One of our party, in attempting to wade across a narrow channel, was taken off his feet by a heavy wave, and was for some time in imminent peril. Frequently he regained the margin of the shore, and