Particulars of Crater Basin. 273 



son, still unwilling to renounce all hope that he might yet 

 be found living at St. Paul. 



We hove to about one mile and a half distant from the great 

 crater-basin, in whose eastern buttress a natural communication 

 has been opened with the sea through a breach in its side. 

 When the Dutch captain, William Van Flaming, cast anchor 

 before the island in 1697* the wearing action of the waves had 

 not yet completed this breach, there existing at that period a 

 dam of some five feet high between the sea and the cavity of 

 the crater. At present small boats can, at any hour of the 

 day, pass into the crater-basin, protected from the swell of the 

 ocean by two natural barriers, which leave between them a 

 passage of about 300 feet wide. Our last admeasurement gave 

 a length of 600 feet for the southern barrier, and 1002 feet for 

 that in the north ; while the intervening water passage mea- 

 sured 306 feet in breadth, with a depth of 9-6 feet at high 

 water, and from 2 to 3 feet at ebb tide. On the north side of 

 the entrance to the straits stands a lofty pyramidal rock, called 

 Nine-Pin Rock, round which circle innumerable sea-fowl, 

 which to all appearance brood among the chinks and crannies 

 of the rock, while in the water below crowds of sharks lash the 

 water into foam. It must be highly dangerous hereabouts to 

 be capsized in a boat, as there would be little possibility of any 

 one being rescued, no matter how speedily assistance might be 

 rendered. 



Scarcely were we anchored, ere we in the ship perceived a 

 boat approaching from the island, which rapidly neared the 



