Page:Journal of the Right Hon. Sir Joseph Banks.djvu/165

Rh but a goat or an Indian could have stood. One of these ropes was nearly thirty feet in length; our guides offered to help us up this pass, but rather recommended one lower down, a few hundred yards away, which was much less dangerous. We did not choose to venture on it, as the sight which was to reward our hazard was nothing but a grove of vae trees, such as we had often seen before.

In the whole course of this walk the rocks were almost constantly bare to the view, so that I had a most excellent opportunity of searching for any appearance of minerals, but saw not the smallest sign of any. The stones everywhere showed manifest signs of having been at some time or other burnt, indeed I have not yet seen a specimen of stone in the island that has not the visible marks of fire upon it; small pieces indeed of the hatchet stone may be without them, but I have pieces of the same kind burnt almost to a pumice: the very clay upon the hills shows manifest signs of fire. Possibly the island owes its origin to a volcano, which now no longer burns, or, theoretically speaking, for the sake of those authors who balance this globe by a proper weight of continent placed near these latitudes, this necessary continent may have been sunk by dreadful earthquakes and volcanoes two or three hundred fathoms under the sea, the tops of the highest mountains only remaining above the water in the shape of islands: an undoubted proof being that such a thing now exists, to the great support of their theory, which, were it not for this proof, would have been already totally demolished by the course our ship made from Cape Horn to this island.

4th. I employed myself in planting a large quantity of the seeds of water-melons, oranges, lemons, limes, etc., which I had brought from Rio de Janeiro; they were planted on both sides of the fort in as many varieties of soil as I could choose. I have very little doubt of the former, especially, coming to perfection, as I have given away large quantities of seed among the natives; I planted some also in the woods. The natives now continually ask me for seeds, and have already shown me melon plants of their raising which