200 WHALES BONES. 



nothing better to load them with. I landed 

 upon one of the islands and ascended to the 

 highest point to look ont ; there was some ice 

 visible in different directions around, hut I 

 could discover nothing alive upon it, so I 

 set the boat s crew to load up with drift-wood, 

 quantities of which, of excellent quality and in 

 every stage of preservation, strewed the shores 

 of this island. 



While they were so engaged I walked about 

 and geologised. The island was in every 

 respect similar to those which I have already 

 described ; a great deal of drift-wood lay far 

 above high-water mark, and in positions where 

 it could not possibly have been driven by 

 storms in the present relative levels of land 

 and sea. 



Numbers of whales bones also lay upon 

 this island from the sea-level up to the top 

 of the rocks, which may have been thirty- 

 five to forty feet in height. Those bones lying 

 high above the sea-level were invariably 

 much more decayed and moss-grown than 

 those lower down. Some of them were of 

 enormous size. In one slight depression of 

 the island, about ten feet above the sea-level, 

 I counted eleven enormous jawbones, all lying 



