Mr. George Tate on the Fame Islands; 281 



9 feet long, it weighed 40 stone, and yielded 20 gallons of excel- 

 lent oil. The female brings forth one calf, in the month of 

 November, which at first is 3 feet long, and is able in two weeks 

 to follow its dam into the water. The Great Seal rarely wanders 

 far from the Fame Islands. Another species, the Common Seal 

 (Phoca vitulina), is occasionally seen swimming among the islands, 

 but it does not breed on any ; it formerly resorted in consider- 

 able numbers to Holy Island, where it is still observed to bring 

 forth its young*. 



The temperature of the islands is more equable than that of 

 the mainland ; the highest observed on the Longstone was 66° ; 

 it is rarely at freezing-point; the lowest was on the 17th of 

 February 1855, when it was 24*5°, while on the same day it 

 was 9° below zero at Chillingham in NortHumberland. 



GEOLOGY. 



Though the Fame Islands are of limited area, their geology is 

 not without interest. All the rocks above high-water level are 

 basalt, which is of the same character and age as that on the 

 neighbouring coast at Bambro. It is composed of black augite 

 and whitish felspar, the former being usually most predominant ; 

 occasionally it is amygdaloidal, the cavities being filled with cal- 

 careous spar. Externally it is black, but a fresh fracture presents 

 a dark grey colour. The iron which is diffused through it is in 

 the state of a protoxide, and hence it is magnetic ; indeed, some 

 specimens from the south-west comer of the Fame I found to 

 possess polarity. It is of irregular thickness, but where it is in 

 greatest mass it is about 90 feet in depth. It is rudely columnar, 

 of which the Pinnacles afford a characteristic example. Though 

 fissured in various directions, there appear to be some master 

 fissures which have a more or less northerly course, and which, 

 by the action of the tides and storms, have been converted into 

 deep chasms. Of this description are the Churn on the Fame, 

 which runs N.W, by N., and St. Cuthbert's Gut, which runs 

 N.N.W. ; others on the Stapel have a direction of N.W. by N., 

 and N.W. The cliff-faces ai*e towards the south and west ; and the 

 usual inclination or slope of the rock is towards the north-east. 

 Sedimentary or stratified rocks are visible at two points — in 

 the channel between the Fame and the Wedom, and on the 

 south side of Fosseland. The beds eastward of the Fame can 

 only be seen when the tide is low ; they consist of the following 

 ascending series: — 



Red metamorphic shale, very hard, immediately above the 

 basalt, and containing a large number of Productus Flemingii 

 and Spirifer tri^onalis, along with Orthis crenistria ; 



* Id the Annals of Natural History, vol. vi. p. 462, is an interesting 

 account of the Great Seal of the Fame. 



