318 NOTES ON THE BOTANY 
specimens of these birds and their eggs; also of the rocks, 
and of every thing I could find, without taking my eyes off 
the plants. I ascended the hill as high as was possible, but 
could not reach the summit, for we were only allowed three 
hours upon the island, and I dared not waste time in making 
such attempts. As it was, we were not half sufficiently long 
there to accomplish what I could have wished, for the diffi- 
culty I experienced in detecting any vegetation at all, con- 
vinces me that much may have eluded my researches, and 
that perhaps double as many: plants might have been gathered, 
if I could have staid to seek for them. The Sargassum above- 
noticed, does not appear to grow on the shores.” 
The afternoon of the day during which this island was visited 
found the officers and crew with the less agreeable employ- 
ment of towing the ships off the land, by the help of all their 
boats, for the winds were so light and the tide ran so strong, 
that it was difficult for the vessels £o hold their own. {At night 
a fresh breeze springing up, enabled the navigators to steer 
for the point of land before mentioned, and to pass with dif- 
ficulty through the very narrow channel, which separates this 
promontory from the chain of icebergs. This land proved on 
near inspection, to be an exceedingly slender cape, bare of 
snow, with steep banks dipping down to the sea, and full of 
extraordinary cracks and fissures, with its top covered with 
little cones and craters, apparently formed of a mass of light 
brown volcanic mud, which had cracked while in the process 
of induration and through which the vents had protruded. 
Or possibly, this land might be composed of a mass of scoriæ, 
ejected from the little craters, which has been worn into per- 
pendicular escarpments towards the sea, by the action of the 
tides, and the fissures are caused by the snow melting. The 
voyagers were much struck by the singular aspect which these 
isolated pieces of land, quite bare of snow, as of vegetation, 
yet so very near an ice-bound continent, present. The weather 
continued so thick for three days, that the two ships were only 
enabled to keep company by firing guns and beating gongs, &u» 
On the 9th, as the gloomy atmosphereand theice, closing round, 
