CHAPTER VI. 



EXPLORATIONS IN SKYRING WATER. 



ON the occasion of our last visit to Sandy Point, the captain 

 received despatches from the Admiralty, which authorised 

 him to proceed to Skyring Water in order to investigate the nature 

 of the coal which was then being worked on the north-east of that 

 basin, and to ascertain if it could be made available for the use 

 of men-of-war or merchant vessels, passing through the Straits 

 of Magellan. A favourable opportunity occurring on March 5th, 

 the Alert accordingly got under way from her anchorage at 

 Tilly Bay, and steaming northwards across the Strait, entered the 

 Jerome Channel. Here we experienced a strong current from 

 the northward, which was attributed by Mr. Petley, our navi- 

 gating officer, to the ebb tide flowing from the Otway Water. 

 This channel is twenty miles in length, from its southern opening 

 opposite Tilly Bay to its northern extremity abreast of Corona 

 Island, where it dilates into the wide expanse of Otway Water. 

 Its shores are lined by precipitous mountains of an average 

 height of 1,000 feet, and clothed to their summits with the 

 dense evergreen forest which characterizes the scenery of the 

 western half of the Magellan Straits. Behind, and towering 

 above this coast range, were hills of a still greater altitude, 

 whose summits were clothed with a mantle of snow and ice — 

 the source of the glaciers flowing to the southward into the main 

 straits. As we entered Otway Water, we saw on our starboard 



