HEAKD ISLAND. 217 



hidden in the drifting scud and mist. It consists of a small 

 main rocky mass, and two outliers with a very irregular outline 

 and weather-beaten appearance. 



The main mass is Macdonald Island, and gives the name to 

 the group. It is bounded on all sides by cliffs, which are high 

 towards the eastward, but lower towards the westward. There 

 was no snow on the island ; on one stretch of sloping flat land, 

 a covering of vegetation could be made out no doubt similar to 

 that of Heard Island. One of the outliers is in the form of a 

 pinnacle, projecting straight up from the sea. 



We anchored at Heard Island, in Corinthian or Whisky 

 Bay, as it is named by the sealers, in the afternoon ; I landed at 

 once with Captain Nares and Mr. Buchanan. Heard Island is in 

 about lat. 53° 10' EL, long. 73° 30' E. It is thus in about the 

 same latitude as the eastern entrance of the Straits of Magellan, 

 and in a corresponding latitude in the southern hemisphere, to 

 our city of Lincoln in the northern ; it is in nearly the same 

 longitude as Bombay. It is about twenty-five miles in extreme 

 length, and six in extreme breadth, and has an area of about 

 80 square miles. The island is elongate in form, stretching in a 

 direction about N.W. by W., and S.E. by E. The southernmost 

 extremity turns eastward, and runs out into a long narrow 

 promontory. 



Whisky Bay is near the northernmost extremity of the 

 island. To the south-east of the ship, as she lay in the small 

 bay, were seen a succession of glaciers descending right down to 

 the beach, and separated by lateral moraines from one another ; 

 six of these glaciers were visible from the anchorage, forming by 

 their terminations the coast-line eastwards. They rose with a 

 gentle slope, with the usual rounded undulating surface up- 

 wards towards the interior of the island, but their origin was hid 

 in the mist and cloud ; and Big Ben, the great mountain of the 

 island, said to be 7,000 feet in height, was not seen by us at all. 



One of the glaciers, that nearest to the ship, instead of 

 abutting on the sea-shore directly with its end, as did the others, 

 presented, towards its lower extremity its side to the action of 

 the waves, and ending somewhat inland, formed a well-marked 

 but scanty terminal moraine. 



