Page:A Voyage of Discovery and Research in the Southern and Antarctic Regions Vol 2.djvu/30

16 are not uncommon. The rock is, as usual, traversed by veins of oxide of iron, and in some parts quantities of soft pyrites are found. A well, sunk to the depth of seventy feet in the rock, affords a chalybeate water of unusual strength, an analysis of which I hope to present on a future occasion.

"The slate clay in this locality may be compared to a riband in a sea of basalt; but it is also found varying, nevertheless, as it respects degree of induration, and the quantity and nature of its fossilized contents, in various parts of the peninsula. At Eagle Hawk Neck, as I before mentioned, it is replete with fossils of indurated clay: these are generally coated with oxide of iron. The basis of the rock at this locality bears the semblance of wacke. The extreme regularity of the disposition of the veins of oxide of iron has obtained for it here the designation of the "Tesselated Pavement ," forming, at the verge of the shore, planes of rectangular and rhomboidal stones, similar to the well-paved roadway of a town. In many parts of the peninsula the rocks of each description, basaltic, silicious, and aluminous, are partially covered by a bed of sand, mostly of no great depth, forming the Tea-tree Scrubs (Leptospermum). The only specimen from the coal mines at Slopen Main, is a piece of anthracite, containing vegetable impressions."