Chap, viii.] COAL AT CHRISTMAS HARBOUR. 173 



in Royal Sound were once connected, and that there was thus 

 a broad sheet of lava rock with a gentle inclination from inland 

 towards the sea. This slope was covered with a huge glacier, 

 which was bordered by the mountain ridges now bounding the 

 Sound to the north and south, and, perhaps, deposited some of 

 the talus at present forming part of the ridge above Mutton 

 Cove. After grinding the whole surface of its bed, the glacier 

 shrunk and cut deeper channels between masses of rock, 

 which were left standing, and thus formed the present islands. 



Either during this period, or after glaciation had ceased, the 

 whole was submerged till the upper surfaces of all the islands 

 were under the sea, and then ice drifting seawards from the 

 remnants of the shrunken glaciers at the heads of the fjords, 

 dropped upon the rock surfaces the erratics which at present 

 lie upon them. At this time all the moraines were washed away. 



At the base of the hills about Betsy Cove, the bottoms of 

 the secondary valleys are as distinctly glaciated as the main 

 valleys themselves, and the slopes of the smoothed surfaces 

 seem to lead towards the cavity and mouth of the present 

 Cascade Harbour. 



About Betsy Cove, thin beds of a red earthy matter a foot 

 or two in thickness are very common, underlying beds of 

 basalt and weathering out in the cliffs so as to leave ledges and 

 low-roofed caverns. They occur in exactly the same manner 

 as the beds of coal at Christmas Harbour ; and when this coal 

 is burnt in the fire it bakes to a compact mass of red earthy 

 matter, exactly resembling that above referred to. . There 

 seems no doubt that these red beds, as well as the coal beds, 

 represent old land surfaces. The soil consisting of black peaty 

 matter as now, not many feet thick, has been overflowed by 

 lava streams, which in the case of the coal have been only hot 

 enough to char all the vegetable matter, in the other case have 

 burnt it to an ash. 



The coal at Christmas Harbour consists of abundant earthy 

 matter, full of charred remnants of vegetable tissue, but I 

 could find no recognizable leaves or definite forms, except 

 something which resembled a Chara. Even microscopic struc- 

 ture seems entirely destroyed. From the glaciated condition 

 of the beds overlying the coal and red earth, the great 

 antiquity of the Kerguelen vegetation is evident. It has been 

 dwelt upon by Sir J. D. Hooker. 



At Betsy Cove are the graves of some whalers, none of very 

 old date. They have small white painted wooden monuments. 

 It was at Betsy Cove that the best teal shooting was enjoyed, 

 there being several small rivers in the neighbourhood, and 

 plenty of small ponds and marshy ground with abundance of 



