42 REV. GEORGE PATTERSON 



lengtb by two in breadth, with bills from one bnndred and iifty to two bnndred feet in 

 height, lieginning at tlie west end and attaining tlieir greatest elevation at Mount Knight, 

 its eastern extremity. 



Another chart, issued about tlie year 1815, represents the island as between 60" 03' and 

 60^ 32' west long., or twenty-nine miles in length, being two miles less than by tlie ehart of 

 1799. In the year 1829 Capt. Darby, in command of the vessel employed by government 

 to visit the island, prepared a chart from observations of his own, which represents the 

 island as only twenty-two miles in length. 



Hon. Josepli Howe visited the island in 1850 for the purpose of making himself per- 

 sonally acquainted with it and examining into its requirements. In his report to parliament 

 he called attention to the fact that, by actual measurement, it had diminished at the west 

 end in thirty years to tlie extent of about eleven miles. He also urged the importance of 

 having its position determined, as the old chart by w'hich Capt. Darby was supposed to be 

 guided and one drawn up l>v himself showed a difterenee of not less tlum twenty-two miles 

 in the location of the w'est point. This involved a serious danger to navigators. On Mr. 

 Howe's report the admiral was communicated with, who immediately ordered Commander 

 Ba^'field and staff" to make a new survey of the island. In the following year he issued a 

 corrected chart, showing the island as lying between 50^ 45" and 60' OS" west longitude, 

 thus showing the west end to be two miles farther east than by Darby's plan. 



This evidence of the wasting of the island is contirraed by the testimony of those who 

 have resided upon the island. When the establishment w^as founded, in 1801, the site 

 selected for the main station was one remarkably well sheltered by sand-hills, and situated 

 live miles from the west end. But in May, 1814, Mr. Hodgson, the superintendent, writes : 

 "As the west end of the island is all washing away, I expect in the course of two or three 

 years that the house will be washed away, if it goes away as fast as it has done the last 

 six months. In course of four j^ears it has washed away four miles, so that it is not above 

 one mile from the house to the end of the land, and that terminates in a point. I think we 

 shall have to move dow^n to the middle house." And on the 24th July he writes that he 

 " had pulled down all the buildings and moved to the middle building." This was about 

 three miles farther east. But on the 5th June, 1820, he again writes: "The west end of 

 the island is washing away so fast that it is now very near the house at west end settle- 

 ment, and we shall have to remove the buildings this summer or lose them entirely." And 

 on the 26th July he again writes that he has pulled down the west end house, and removed 

 it to the Haul-over Ponds, a place about three miles to the east of where it formerly stood, 

 as the ground wliereon it stood had washed away. 



Still the sea advanced, the two following winters being noted for the severity of the 

 storms, each of which made inroads on the sand-cliffs at the western part of the island, and 

 produced changes on the surface of the interior. By the year 1833 the sea had advanced so 

 far that it was within half a mile of the buildings, and new ones were erected about four 

 miles farther eastward. The encroachments of the sea having continued, the present site of 

 the main station was selected, on the broadest and most protected part of the island. 



Between the years 1850 and 1881 the western part of the island enjoyed comparative 

 repose. Mr. McDonald accounts for this very naturally by the fact, that the quantities of 

 sand carried into the sea had turnuMl shoals to the west, on which the sea would break 

 before reaching the cliffs, and thus its abrading force Ijc diminished. In the same way the 



