AND PORTO SANTO. 118 



descending S. 30.E.? I cannot help thinking, that there must have 

 been an irruption of the sea from the northward, covering both this 

 small flat, and that ah'eady described in Porto Santo, (where a 

 marine shell, an ampuUina", is also intermixed with the helices) 

 and depositing the bed of sand on both. However, I have 

 performed the most important part of my duty by particularizing 

 the fact as well as I am able, and will therefore say no more. The 

 high chffs on the north side of this part of the island, behind 

 Canifal, are broken off abruptly in their whole depth towards the 

 sea, and present numerous dip Hnes of strata, deeply inchned to 

 the southward, from these broken faces ; thus, as if a considerable 



part of the island had been broken off or worn away on that side, 

 which would also seem to have been formed from a crater now 

 lost in the ocean, to the northward. 



I took leave of the worthy vicar with some regret, his reception 

 had been so cordial, and his manners were so frank, and liis 

 hospitahty so cheerful. It is painfvd, after being surprised by 

 meeting an agreeable or estimable character in a barren and almost 

 uninhabited corner of the world, to leave him without some proof 

 of respect, and without the smallest chance of future intercourse. 

 He had been twenty-three years in this miserable spot, without 

 preferment, or recompense beyond his own conscience, and still 

 remained without the hope or prospect of either. 



" In addition lo the fossil shells, which I found in the limestone at Baxo, I have 

 now to mention the mould of a spondylus, and the upper valve of a lima. 



