FalMands, etc.] FLORA ANTARCTICA. 221 



matter, everywhere covers a soil so heated that the roots cannot descend beyond a few inches. 

 Sir G. Staunton mentions that changes in the level of the land at the mouth of the cove have 

 occurred since 1697, when the island was landed upon by Van Vlaming, a Dutch commander. 

 Since 1793, the period of Sir G. Staimton's visit to the island, half a century has elapsed, and 

 the changes, if any, have been insignificant. The land may possibly be rising, though accord- 

 ing to Van Vlaming it must have sunk since his time, when there was no communication 

 between the sea and the lagoon, the intermediate causeway being at least five feet high. 

 Staunton states the depth of water on the bar to be eight feet at high water, and Lieut. Smith 

 as 7 ft. 4 in. at the highest spring tides. Nor does the temperature of the hot springs appear to 

 have altered materially during the last fifty years, it then averaged 190°, and Mr. Smith found 

 one that he tried to be 182° (though there are others where the temperature rises to 212°) ; the 

 latter gentleman boiled both fish and rice in one of these springs close to the ocean's edge 

 and they were well cooked in twelve minutes, thus confirming Sir G. Staunton's anecdote, 

 that a person who had caught fish in the cold water of the lagoon could, with a slight motion 

 of his hand, let it drop into a hot adjoining spring, when it woidd be boiled in fifteen minutes 

 fit for eating (McCartney's Embassy, vol. i. p. 212), an account that has been treated as 

 fabulous. 



The island of St. Paul, only fifty miles farther north, has never been visited by a natu- 

 ralist ; it is mentioned by several authorities as low and undulating, covered with trees and 

 shrubs, but with no traces of internal heat; Labillardiere, who passed this island in 1792, 

 describes it as being in a state of combustion, but he doubts whether the fires were kindled 

 by the hand of man, or were owing to subterranean heat. The former is most probably the 

 case, for Mr. Smith, who lost no opportunity of gaining information about these curious 

 islands, gives me the following statement, obtained from some sealers who had visited St. 

 Paid's. " A variety of plants grow luxuriantly in the northern of these two islands, and trees 

 several inches in diameter ; there are no hot springs there, nor is its earth at all heated ; 

 vegetables may be cultivated with tolerable success ; but this island is always most difficult 

 to land upon." This precisely tallies with other scattered notices of St. Paid's that I have 

 seen. 



I shall conclude this long digression with a notice of the vegetable productions of Amster- 

 dam Island. Sir G. Staunton mentions a Zycqpodiitm, a Marchantia, and a long grass ; to 

 these I can now add another species of grass, a Plantago, Colobantltus, an Azorella ? (or Ranun- 

 culus?) a Cenomyce, and several species of Mosses. The Colobanthus is typical of a southern 

 or Antarctic Flora ; but the grasses appear more characteristic of a warmer chmate ; from 

 these materials I do not feel justified in referring the vegetation to any botanical region, but 

 consider it probable that there may be a considerable proportion of forms indicative of a warm 

 latitude, especially in St. Paid's. 



The number of species in the present Part precludes the introduction of lengthened 

 descriptions, even were these as requisite as I deemed them in the case of the more novel 



2 Y 



