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* A suite of barracks and store-houses is now erecting close 
to the landing place; and at an enormous expense, it would 
appear, for the island itself affords nothing but the stones; 
the lime and timber are brought from the Cape, where these 
articles are no bargain, and the carpenters and masons also, 
at the daily hire of a dollar and a half a head. So destitute, 
indeed, is this miserable spot of every thing contributing to - 
human comfort, that the ship stationed here is under the 
necessity of making a voyage from time to time to the island 
of Tristan da Cunha for wood and water, a voyage that may 
be reckoned at an average of six weeks or two months. 
** A battery of 14 guns has been erected on a mass of lava 
that commands the anchorage. Opposite to the latter there 
is a smooth beach of fine white shell-sand, half a mile long, 
and flanked by projecting moles of lava. "The border of the 
island is indented all round with ridges of the same material, 
which run a short distance into the sea, and break the con- 
tinuity of the beach. The surface of these ridges consists of 
broken scorious masses, piled on each other in that sort of 
confusion of which a person may form a faint idea who has 
remarked the manner in which ice becomes accumulated 
when driven by the wind to the lee-side of a lake on the. 
breaking up of a hard frost. 
** The island is about 24 miles in circumference, and appears 
to be entirely of volcanic origin. Its surface is covered with 
numberless conical hills, from 200 to 2000 feet high, which 
were the spiracles of so many subterraneous fires. They are 
remarkably smooth, and apparently mere accumulations of 
blood-red scoria and cinders. The central ridge, or peak, 
estimated at 3000 feet high, is of a greenish hue, indicating a 
commencement of vegetation; but the low ground and the 
conical hills are entirely destitute of plants, with the exception 
of a species of Euphorbia, which I found growing prod 
in the fissures of the lava close by the shore. "T ri 
* In the rainy season vast quantities of pumice are mabed 
down from the hills, which, pulverized in its progress, is 
blown about by the wind, and fills the crevices of the lava 
with an impalpable dust. I have no doubt that this pumice 
