64 Journal of Tnrod and Natural History 



" Between Grkgory Bay and Vali.e Point, — April 13, 1867. — The ebb 

 tide ruslies out of Lee Bay at such a rate, tliat it was as much as we could do 

 to stem it at full speed the other day. The cutter got swept out into the 

 narrow stream, and I weighed and steamed after her ; by the time she was up, 

 we wore making stem way at half sjiecd ahead, and as 1 said, only just stem- 

 med it at full S])eed. . . . The governor at Sandy Point gave our steam 

 cutter some of the coal from the mine near, to try, and the engineer reported 

 very favourably on it. . . . 



" Also I went to see the Chonos Archipelago ; it seems to me, that if there 

 is no passage through by the Gulf of St Estevan — and I suppose Fitzroy made 

 certain of this, there is no reason why a vessel should not go out at the Gulf of 

 Penas, and again enter tlie inner waters by Wickham Inlet, or Darwin Channel, 

 and so pass up inside Chiloe Island. This would give 260 or 270 miles more 

 of smooth water for a steamer. Inside Chiloe Island, the Spanish Admiral 

 Nunez Mundez took three ironclads, and he told me it was quite safe ; and in 

 Harper'' s Magazine ^ox h^xW 1865, there is an account of the ' Waterer,' an 

 American man-of-war steamer that went through part of the channel inside 

 the Chonos Islands. The account is not very precise, but they seeni to have 

 tried the entrance marked on the chart as the Triangular Channel, and found it 

 closed up, and that they then entered by a passage south of it, probably south- 

 ward of Bartholomesv Island ; after which they met with no difficulties. 



"I propose to commence next year, by finding a harbour onthe south shore, 

 if possible a little west of Cape Froward, perhaps Hidden Harbour, or one 

 thereabouts, and them some western one, perhaps Port Tamar ; after that 

 setting to work at the Smyth's Channels." 



"Sandy Point, May 15, 1867. — With my Rio letter, I send all our 

 magnetic observations for the voyage out, a specimen of the bottom obtained 

 on the Jaseur Bank, a tracing, and a report of Dr Cunningham's on said 

 bottom. 



" The Chief of the Patagonians is a great friend of mine, and I am arranging 

 with him to meet us at the Gallegos next month ; indeed I am not quite sure 

 that a party will not go up with him and bring the fossils* down on horseback. 



Rich. C. Mayne." 



Letter fro»i Dr Ciiiniiiigham, iXatiira/ist on Board JI. M.S. "Nassau^'' (Captain 

 Mayne, Commander), to Dr /looker, Keu<. 



H.M.S. "Nassau," Gregory Bay, 

 April 12, 1867. 



"As we shall have an opportunity of despatching a mail in the course of 

 two or three weeks by tlie ' Spiteful,' which meets us with coals and 

 provisions, I write to you again to inform you of our proceedings since my 

 last, which was penned in St lago Bay, nearly two months ago, and sent 

 off from the Falkland Islands shortly thereafter. We left the Straits late 

 on the afternoon of the l6th of February, passed the Jason Islands on the 

 evening of the i8tli, and reached Stanley Harbour about 6 I'.M. on the 19th. 

 It was a wretched cold, rainy afternoon, and I thought Stanley one of the most 

 miserable-looking places I had ever seen, with its houses irregularly scattered 

 up and down the side of a bare, bleak hill. I cannot say that a further acquaint- 

 ance with Stanley and its neighbourhood prepossessed me in its favour, although I 

 saw much that interested me in the course of various walks that we took while 

 we were there. Owing to the season being far advanced, the greater number of 

 the plants were out of flower, but I got specimens of several that were new to 

 mc, though well known to the scientific world. The day after we arrived, I had 

 a walk up one of the low hills in the environs of Stanley, and saw, for the first 

 time, specimens of the famous ' Balsam Bog ' i)lant, as well as the beautiful 

 little Callixene marginata, which the colonists call the almond flower, from its 

 sweet smell. I was told that the Tussock grass is in a fair way of being extir- 



*Some large fossil bones alluded to in a former letter, but which have not yet arrived. 



