718 LOUIS AGASSIZ. 



Still accompanied by beautiful weather, the 

 Hassler anchored at the Elizabeth Islands and 

 at San Magdalena. Here Agassiz had an op- 

 portunity of examining the haunts and rook- 

 eries of the penguins and cormorants, and 

 obtaining fine specimens of both. As the 

 breeding places and the modes of life of these 

 animals have been described by other travel- 

 ers, there is nothing new to add from his im- 

 pressions, until the vessel anchored, on the 

 16th March, before Sandy Point, the only 

 permanent settlement in the Strait. 



Here there was a pause of several days, 

 which gave Agassiz an opportunity to draw 

 the seine with large results for his marine col- 

 lections. By the courtesy of the Governor, 

 he had also an opportunity of making an ex- 

 cursion along the road leading to the coal- 

 mines. The wooded cliffs, as one ascends the 

 hills toward the mines, are often bold and 

 picturesque, and Agassiz found that portions 

 of them were completely built of fossil shells. 

 There is an oyster-bank, some one hundred 

 feet high, overhanging the road in massive 

 ledges that consist wholly of oyster-valves, 

 with only earth enough to bind them together. 

 He was inclined, from the character of the 

 shells, to believe that the coal must be creta- 

 ceous rather than tertiary. 



