Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 33.djvu/475

Rh natural path leading from near the level of the sea to perhaps twenty feet above it. The path at its widest is four feet across, but from this it tapers either way to nothing, the upper end terminating in a fissure just large enough to accommodate one's foot, the rough, weathered granite forming a very good substitute for a hand-rail. Indeed, Nature has probably never devised a better rock for climbing purposes than the coarse-grained, feldspathic granite composing Funk Island, which weathers into crannies and projections whose rough surfaces offer secure support for hand and foot.

Below the "Bench" the cliff descends almost vertically to a depth of one hundred and twenty feet beneath the sea, this combination of deep water and perpendicular rock offering no obstacle to chafe the sea into breaking, so that, but for the never-ceasing rise and fall of the swell, one almost seems to be lying beside some huge pier. This landing, however, is only practicable during a calm or with a southerly wind; and, smooth as it was at the time of our visit, the boat rose and fell with every heave of the ocean from four to six feet. With a northerly wind, boats seek a more precarious landing at the southwestern extremity of the island.

Once on the "Bench," to which we hastened to transfer ourselves and all our baggage, it is an easy matter to reach the summit of the island, either by scrambling directly up the rock or by an easier but longer zigzag path.

The result of a careful study of the island during the forenoon had been a unanimous decision that the precipitous character of a large portion of the shore hardly bore out Prof. Milne's simile of its likeness to an upturned saucer. Viewed from the eastern bluffs, it looks not only steep but larger and higher than most accounts would lead one to suppose. Its greatest length seems over half a mile, and its greatest width something over a quarter; so that Cartier, who came here in 1532 and 1534, can not be far out of the way when he says "it containeth about a league in circuit." While it may be a little presumptuous to question the height of forty-six feet given on the chart, nevertheless sixty feet would apparently be much nearer the mark.

Two faults, deepened by time into shallow valleys, divide the island into three ridges running almost east and west. The northern and central of these are bare rock, for the most part smoothed and rounded by rain and ice, but here and there weathered into curious, overlapping ledges. Here, where there is no soil whatever, the smell of guano arising from the droppings of the murres and puffins is quite noticeable, but elsewhere there is but little odor, and that due to the puffins. Rain has washed the soluble matter from the ancient soil of the island, while the heaps of auk