220 FLORA ANTARCTICA. \Fuegia, the 



the land it rests upon, and presenting fossiliferous strata that we believe are deposited at even 

 greater depths ? On the other hand, referring to the island under consideration, as it now 

 appears, we may regard it as the remains of some far more extended body of land. Position 

 in longitude in the Southern Hemisphere appears to determine the amount of vegeta- 

 tion an island may possess. Of this we have an instance in South Georgia, and the reason 

 is evident ; the extension of the great continents is in longitude, and the climate and other 

 features of the islands depend upon then proximity to the land, which modifies the desolating 

 influence of the icy ocean. The time we have granted for the formation of the various strata 

 composing Kerguelen's Land and the forests that successively decorated them, is sufficient for 

 the destruction of a large body of land to the northward of it, of which St. Paid's Island and 

 Amsterdam Island may be the only remains, or for the subsidence of a chain of mountains 

 running east and west, of which Prince Edward's Island, Marion, and the Crozets are the 

 exposed peaks. With regard to the botanical characteristics of Kerguelen's Land, full notices 

 of them have been prepared for Sir James Ross's narrative of the Antarctic voyage, and the 

 subject will be further treated in a work devoted to the' distribution of vegetation in the 

 southern regions. 



The Islands of St. Paul and Amsterdam, hitherto ranked under no geograpliical or bota- 

 nical regions, perhaps demand notice here. Though constantly sighted by outward-bound 

 Indiamen and Australian ships, they have been rarely visited, and never by scientific persons, 

 except those accompanying Lord Macartney's embassy to China, and very recently by my 

 former companion and zealous cooperator in all scientific pursuits, Lieut. A. Smith, R.N. 

 Some confusion still exists with regard to the names of these two islands, which are situated 

 north-west of Kerguelen's Land, in the longitude of 78°, and the respective latitudes of 38° 

 and 39°. The names of St. Paid and Amsterdam have been applied indiscriminately by various 

 navigators, the latter I continue to give to the southern island, in accordance with Sir George 

 Staunton's and with the recent south circumpolar charts, where, however, the southernmost 

 island is represented as the larger instead of the smaller of the two. Both are no doubt of 

 volcanic origin, though only Amsterdam is in a state of activity. The latter alone has been 

 visited by Sir G. Staimton, who has published an excellent account of it, and by Lieut. Smith 

 who had the kindness to forward me most interesting particulars regarding it, and a collection 

 of all the plants he was enabled to detect there. No one reading Sir George Staunton's ac- 

 count, and especially after looking at his plans and sketches of Amsterdam Island, can fad to 

 be struck with the similarity its most remarkable features present to those of Deception Island, 

 one of the South Shetlands. They are of the same size ; both are annular craters, open to 

 the eastward, inclosing a deep lagoon with a conical hill on each side of the entrance ; that at 

 the northern end being the highest, and both are nuclei of heated matter, with a thin covering 

 of soil, through which escape streams and springs of warm or boiling water. The general 

 nature of the vegetation of Amsterdam Island is described by Mr. Smith to be a coarse tufted 

 grass, which springing from a bed of fine black peat composed of decomposed fibrous vegetable 



