KERGUELEX'S LAND. 199 



Cove, and if the great valley at Betsy Cove were submerged, 

 we should have on its northern side the hills projecting as 

 islands, and giving a miniature representation of those in Eoyal 

 Sound. 



There can be but little doubt that the whole of these islands 

 in Eoyal Sound were once connected, and that there was thus a 

 broad sheet of lava rock with a gentle inclination from inland 

 towards the sea. This slope was covered with a huge glacier, 

 which was bordered by the mountain ridges now bounding the 

 Sound to the north and south, and, perhaps, deposited some of 

 the talus at present forming part of the ridge above Mutton 

 Cove. After grinding the whole surface of its bed, the glacier 

 shrunk and cut deeper channels between masses of rock, which 

 were left standing, and thus formed the present islands. 



Either during this period, or after glaciation had ceased, 

 the whole was submerged till the upper surfaces of all the 

 islands were under the sea, and then ice drifting seawards from 

 the remnants of the shrunken glaciers at the heads of the fjords, 

 dropped upon the rock surfaces the erratics which at present lie 

 upon them. At this time all the moraines were washed away. 



At the base of the hills about Betsy Cove, the bottoms of the 

 secondary valleys are as distinctly glaciated as the main valleys 

 themselves, and the slopes of the smoothed surfaces seem to 

 lead towards the cavity and mouth of the present Cascade 

 Harbour. 



About Betsy Cove, thin beds of a red earthy matter a foot or 

 two in thickness are very common, underlying beds of basalt 

 and weathering out in the cliffs so as to leave ledges and low- 

 roofed caverns. They occur in exactly the same manner as the 

 beds of coal at Christmas Harbour ; and when this coal is burnt 

 in the fire it bakes to a compact mass of red earthy matter, 

 exactly resembling that above referred to. There seems no 

 doubt that these red beds, as well as the coal beds, represent old 

 land surfaces. The soil consisting of black peaty matter as now, 

 not many feet thick, has been overflowed by lava streams, 

 which in the case of the coal have been only hot enough to char 

 all the vegetable matter, in the other case have burnt it to an ash. 



The coal at Christmas Harbour consists of abundant earthy 



