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The canvas for the boat was obtained from one of the sails but 

 long before the possibility of a boat was ever thought of, the men 

 had cut it up to make shirts and trousers. So with needles made 

 out of birds' bones and twine saved from the wreck, they 

 laboriously sewed the canvas together, and after greasing it with 

 seal oil, attached it to the rude framework. Whilst four of the 

 men went to the scene of the wreck to fetch the body of the mate 

 Peters, who had died from exposure, the scientists scoured the 

 island, and visited the huts built by the castaways, in which they 

 had lived six months. Built of peat and thatched with tussock 

 grass, they made admirable shelters in which two or three men could 

 sleep. For rugs the skins of the albatross and mollyhawk were 

 adopted. The geologists here made important discoveries of 

 ancient sedimentary rocks, thus adding another link to the already 

 established theory of a great sub-antarctic continent, further 

 proofs of which it was one of the main objects of the Expedition 

 to discover. The geologists also made valuable collections of 

 earthworms, woodlice, etc., identifying the same as identical 

 with those of Kergulen and Fuegia. In a great measure also the 

 plant life of the island goes to prove the existence of a sub- 

 antarctic continent joined to that of New Zealand. The weather 

 for these latitudes throughout the stay of the Expedition has 

 been normal and perhaps finer than is usually the case. It has 

 rained every day but never for the whole day, while the winds 

 have been ' moderate to strong • from N.W. to S.W. The nature 

 of the country is boggy peat, the steep ascents and thick scrub 

 making it very difficult to traverse, except above 1,000 feet, then 

 the ground becomes stony. 



" On our leaving Disappointment Island, about 12 noon, we 

 steamed in the Hinemoa south as far as Cape Bristow,and then up 

 the western cliffs and round N.W. Cape back to Port Ross. All then 

 went ashore at the depot to bury the poor mate in the littl 

 cemetery, Captain Bollons reading the burial service, a most 

 impressive scene, the tomb stones telling of untold suffering of 

 mariners long ago, of the two men who died of starvation, of a 

 child aged three months, and inscribed on a slate hanging on 

 a stick 'Unknown. 1 The ceremony over we returned on board, 

 and to-day the 29th, the morning broke clear and fine with an 

 occasional shower and wind W. l moderate.' The morning is 

 being spent re- victualling the depot and in magnetic survey. We 

 sailed at 12 noon for the Bluff." - 



In "The New Zealand Times" for December 11th, 1907, Dr. 

 Cockayne gives the following account of the Snares, about which 

 group less has been published than about the other islands : 



" The Snares consist of two fairly large islands and some rocks 

 built up entirely of granite, the precipitous cliffs of which, especially 

 on the western side, tell the story of a large land surface in the 

 past. This conclusion, too, is amply supported by the botanical 

 evidence, since the islands contain but 23 species of flowering 

 plants and ferns, the sole survivors of a much more varied 

 assemblage in the days gone by. As a land surface shrinks owing 

 to well-known geological causes, the struggle for existence among 

 its plant, and for the matter of that, animal inhabitants, becomes 

 keener and keener and is intensified by climatic changes also, 



