Page:Journal of the Royal Geographical Society of London, Volume 1 (2nd edition).djvu/196

170 the channel in some places to a mile, and in one place to not more than fifty yards in width. Here, of course, the tide sets with great strength. Several vessels, however, have passed through it under sail; and one ship, (a whaler belonging to Messrs. Enderbys,) working through the Strait, and finding much difficulty in passing to the westward, bore up, and, the wind being fair and the distance to sea only fifty miles, ran through it without accident. The land to the westward of the Barbara Chanel is high and rugged; and although in the vallies, ravines and sheltered nooks there is no want of vegetation, yet, in comparison with the eastern part of the Strait, it has a very dismal and uninviting appearance. It was called by Sarmionto, ' Santa Ines Island ;' but Narborough called it, very appropriately, 'South Desolation, it being,' as he says, 'so desolate land to behold .'

Clarence Island, the extent of which is fifty-two miles long and twenty-three broad, although equally rocky, is much more verdant in appearance. The uniform direction of the headlands of the north shore of this island is remarkable. Upon taking a set of angles with the theodolite placed upon the extremity of the west end of Bell Bay, opposite to Cape Holland, the most prominent points to the south-east, as far as could be seen, were all visible in the field of the telescope at the same bearing. The same thing occurred on the opposite shore of the Strait, where the projections of Cape Gallant, Cape Holland, and Cape Froward, are in the same line of bearing; so that a parallel ruler placed on the map upon the projecting points of the south shore, extended across, will also touch the headlands of the opposite coast.

The eastern island, which had been previously called, and of course retains on our charts the name of King Charles's South Land, extends from the entrance of the Strait to the outlet of the Barbara and Cockburn Channels, at Cape Shomberg. The northern part partakes of the geological character of the eastern portion of the Strait. The centre is a continuation of the slate formation, which is evident at a glance, from the uniformity of the direction of the shores of Admiralty Sound, the Gabriel Channel, and all the bays and mountain ranges of Dawson's Island. The south shore, or seaward coast line, is principally of greenstone, excepting the shores of the Beagle Channel, which extends from Christmas Sound to Cape San Pio, a distance of a hundred and twenty miles, with a course so direct that no points of the opposite shores cross and intercept a free view through; although its avenge breadth, which also is very parallel, is not more than a mile, and in some places only a third of a mile across. The south shores of Hoste and Navarin Islands are of hornblende rock, which is also the principal component of the islands in the