350 THE VOYAGE OF H.M.S. CHALLENGER. 



mammillated surface. Quartz crystals were not observed either here or at Christmas 

 Harbour ; nor were the zeolites, so common in the last-named locality, found either at 

 Howe Island or Betsy Cove. 



Prince of Wales Foreland is an elevation formed by slender basaltic columns, many 

 of which are clustered together into what, if perfect, would have formed spherical 

 agglomerations. The basalt contained large cavities filled with olivine like that of Unkeb 

 on the Ehine. Behind this rocky point the usual flat-topped range of hills stretches 

 inland, consisting of the same basalt with much olivine, not columnar however, but 

 in tabular masses with almost slaty cleavage. 



Nearly opposite Prince of Wales Foreland, and on the other side of the entrance to 

 Royal Sound, is a very remarkable hill of a castellated appearance, called " Cat's Ears," 

 belonging to the same class of hills as Table Mountain in Christmas Harbour. The 

 ruggedly worn rock at the crest gives it its castellated look : this rock consists of a 

 light-coloured ground, enclosing large crystals of augite and pieces of the recent 

 scoriaceous lava which occurs immediately beneath it. The augite crystals, though 

 apparently perfect when imbedded in the rock, were not found otherwise than broken 

 when weathered out ; and in places inside these natural battlements, where there was free 

 play for the usually boisterous wind, all the lighter sand had been blown away, leaving 

 the ground covered by a jet-black gravel. Both these crystals and the rocks show the 

 abrading effect of blown sand, the crystals having lost their regularity of form, and 

 the rocks having acquired a more definite shape than would have been the case had the 

 weathering proceeded equally on all sides. Here, however, and still more remarkably in 

 Heard Island (see pp. 372, 373), the constant and violent westerly winds, wherever they 

 have an opportunity of charging themselves with sand, sculpture the rocks into shapes of 

 apparently unnatural regularity. From this hill another similar but smaller one could 

 be seen close to the base of the " Sugar-loaf." It resembled more a circle of Druidical 

 stones protruding through the moorland than a hill ; it was impossible, however, to visit 

 either it or the imposing Sugar-loaf, the structure of which appeared from a distance to 

 be quite peculiar. 



On entering Greenland Harbour, which at its head is only separated by a narrow 

 neck of land from Boyal Sound, the eye is at once struck by the strange protrusions of 

 light grey rock through the ordinary horizontal basaltic beds which form the hill ranges. 

 The most extensive of them, on the summit of the range on the western side of the 

 harbour, has at a distance a very strong resemblance to a ruined castle. Two of them 

 were examined, one on the summit and one nearer the landing place, both on the west 

 side of the harbour. The rock in both of them is identical, and consists of a light 

 greenish white phonolite protruding through the horizontal beds of augitic rock. These 

 cylindrical masses of phonolite are columnar at the outer edges, the columns lying 

 horizontally and being arranged radially ; this columnar structure, however, disappears 



