59 
state from the interior of the mountain; and in one instance I 
met, near the base of the mountain, and under one of its strata, 
with a specimen of the convoluted lava, so common in the 
Pays-brülé of the island of Bourbon. 
“The climate of Tristan da Cunha is so mild, that the 
herbage remains uninjured throughout the year. Snow is 
never seen on the low land: and the only indication of win- 
ter is a transient sprinkling of hoar-frost, too slight to give 
any serious check to vegetation. ‘The thermometer, during 
summer, rarely ascends beyond 74? in the shade, and stands 
at about 110? when exposed to the meridian sun. At night 
it occasionally falls so low as 48? or 50». 
* If we may give credit to the information of a man of the 
name of Currie, who has lived on the island for the last six 
years, its climate may be regarded as one of the most rainy in 
the world. According to his account, the months of January, 
February, and March, are the only period throughout the 
year in which fair weather may be expected with any degree 
of certainty. During the other nine months, the rain, he told 
us, is almost perpetual. How far the latter part of his state- 
ment may be correct, remains still to be proved; but it was 
our misfortune to experience the fallacy ofthe first, for from the 
28th November, the day on which the detachment landed, to 
the 30th March, when I quitted the island, it rained, on an 
average, every second day.- 
“ This excessive humidity is not, however, entirely charge- 
able to the latitude in which the island is situated. Of this 
we had frequent and tantalizing proofs, for at the very time 
that the rain poured heaviest down, we could plainly distin- 
guish from under the skirts of the cloud which hung over us; 
the distant horizon illuminated by the rays of the sun. 
_ * The power which high mountains possess of condensing 
the moisture of the atmosphere, and precipitating it in the 
form of rain, is nowhere, indeed, more apparent, or more 
unremittingly exerted than on this island. The upper region 
of thé mountain is usually involved in a thick cloud, which 
not only obscures the whole island, but extends its shade to 
some distance over the surrounding ocean. From this cloud 
