﻿184S. POINT PEARCE. 279 



the pitch of the cape, close in-shore, under some 

 very high mural precipices of a bluish-grey, slaty 

 rock, on which a thick mass of columnar basalt is 

 imposed. The cliffs are about two hundred feet 

 high, and stand out in succession, forming the 

 salient angles of several shallow indentations of the 

 coast-line. A talus of unmelted snow-drift lay 

 under most of them, which, being undermined by 

 the action of the waves, would be detached on the 

 first heavy fall of rain and become icebergs. 

 Towards the bottom of Darnley Bay, the coast-line 

 declines greatly in altitude, but the heights of the 

 Melville Range are dimly seen in the distance. We 

 anchored for the night in the north-west angle of 

 the cape, between two projecting points of basalt. 

 The land here rises betwixt three and four hundred 

 feet above the sea. 



On the 16th we continued our voyage to the 

 eastward, and, on landing to prepare breakfast at 

 Point Pearce, ascertained that high-water took 

 place there at eight o'clock. The trap ranges run in 

 this quarter in a south-west and north-east direc- 

 tion, and produce small bays ; their precipitous faces 

 are turned towards the west-south-west. Judging 

 from the view we had of them from the boats in 

 passing, the cliffs were mostly composed of green- 

 stone-slate. At Point Pearce, the shore is formed 

 of flesh-coloured limestone, whose beds crop out in 



T 4 



