1'77& THE PACIFIC OCEAN. $65 



by the ills that bounded it toward the land being 

 covered with thick snow, when those toward the 

 sea or where we lay, had not a speck remaining on 

 them, though, in general, they were much higher. 

 In the middle of the sound are a number of islands of 

 various sizes ; but the chart or sketch of the sound 

 here annexed, though it has no pretensions to accu- 

 racy, will, with all its imperfections, convey a bet- 

 ter idea of these islands, and of the figure, and the 

 extent of the sound, than any written description. 

 The depth of water in the middle of the sound, 

 and even close home to some parts of its shore, is 

 from forty-seven to ninety fathoms, and perhaps 

 more. The harbours and anchoring-places within its 

 circuit are numerous ; but we had no time to survey 

 them. The cove in which our ships lay is on the east 

 side of the sound, and on the east side of the largest 

 of the islands. It is covered from the sea, but has 

 little else to recommend it, being exposed to the 

 south-east winds, which we found to blow with great 

 violence ; and the devastation they make sometimes 

 was apparent in many places. 



The land bordering upon the sea-coast is of a 

 middling height and level ; but within the Sound it 

 rises almost every where into steep hills, which agree 

 in their general formation, ending in round or blunted 

 tops, with some sharp, though not very prominent, 

 ridges on their sides. Some of these hills may be 

 reckoned high, while others of them are of a very 

 moderate height ; but even the highest are entirely 

 covered to their tops with the thickest woods, as well 

 as every flat part toward the sea. There are some- 

 times spots upon the sides of some of the hills which 

 are bare ; but they are few in comparison of the 

 whole, though they sufficiently point out the general 

 rocky disposition of these hills. Properly speaking, 

 they have no soil upon them, except a kind of com- 

 post, produced from rotten mosses and trees, of the 

 depth of two feet or more. Their foundations are, 



