112 THE VOYAGE OF H.M.S. CHALLENGER. 



precipitous cliffs of the southern side of the bay an enormous mass of black basalt 

 rises with perpendicular walls. As one can judge from the frontispiece to the 

 Narrative of the Cruise, Christmas Harbour as a whole is a magnificent spectacle. The 

 appearance is made particularly remarkable by the imposing mass of the rocks, and 

 still more by the sharp contrast of the straight black cliff and the yellowish green 

 vegetation covering the lower slopes. 1 Christmas Harbour was examined by Eoss 

 and the naturalists who accompanied him on his Antarctic expedition. The well-known 

 fossil woods of Kerguelen were discovered here in an excavation named " Fossil Wood 

 Cave," where Eoss found a tree trunk 7 feet in circumference. The fossil wood is 

 silicified or calcified, and appears in the form of splinters or blocks, varying in 

 colour from yellowish white to chocolate-brown and black. They are found in beds 

 forming nearly horizontal layers of only a few feet thick, and composed of a soft, 

 whitish, clayey matter filled with black particles resulting from the decomposition 

 of vegetable matter. The fossil wood is sometimes found in trunks measuring a foot 

 and a half in diameter. It occurs in different states of fossilisation ; sometimes it is 

 silicified, at other times the bark is transformed into a brownish mass of greasy 

 appearance, but crystalline in structure and effervescing with acids. Crystals of pyrites 

 are sometimes found in the fossil wood. Tree trunks have also been observed, the 

 interior of which is penetrated by the eruptive rocks with which this vegetable debris 

 is associated, but the exterior preserves a fibrous appearance as in silicified wood, 

 although the layer is very thin. With this clearly characterised vegetable debris, 

 the genera of which can readily be determined, 2 layers of vegetable origin are found 

 transformed so completely into carbonaceous matter that it becomes difficult to 

 recognise the vegetable tissue ; at the utmost some forms resembling Chara can be 

 made out. According to Moseley, the intimate structure does not even appear with 

 the microscope. These carbonaceous deposits are unsuited for burning, being mixed 

 with a great deal of earthy matter, and often found associated with clayey deposits. 

 Hooker stated long ago that these vegetable remains at Christmas Harbour did not 

 belong to the modern epoch. We shall refer again to the geological conclusions to 

 which the facts observed with regard to these deposits lead, and may mention here some 

 other localities where they were found. Professor Eoth speaks of their presence on 

 the slopes of the basaltic terraces of Mount Havergal which closes Christmas Bay. 

 Above the doleritic basalt a rock of the same nature is found altered into a reddish 

 argillaceous matter, and a layer of palagonitic tufa. This is overlaid by layers of one 

 to two yards of schistoid material, decomposed into a whitish substance. These are 

 formed of a matter resembling lignite and of fine grains of palagonite ; they are not 



1 For the very interesting vegetation of Kerguelen, see the works of Hooker, and for that of Christmas Harbour 

 and Table Mountain, in particular, Moseley 's Notes of a Naturalist, pp. 193 el seq. 



- According to Professor Carnoy, who has been good enough to examine the microscopic preparations, the fossil 

 woods are certaiuly coniferous. 



