68 Cruise of the " Alert r 



Trinidad Channel, inhabiting rocky places immediately below 

 low water mark on the weather (i.e, the west) side of islets 

 which are exposed to the heavy wash of the outer ocean. 

 I have not seen the shell south of this latitude. The brown 

 duck (Anas cristata) was here tolerably abundant, and with the 

 ashy-headed Brent goose, and the two species of oj-ster-catcher, 

 were in great request with our sportsmen, being the only edible 

 birds worth mentioning in the western channels. 



From Port Henry we shifted our base of operations to Wolsey 

 Sound, the next inlet to the eastward. Here we anchored in 

 an apparently well sheltered cove, surrounded by lofty hills, but 

 which we soon found to our cost to be a sort of aerial maelstrom. 

 A strong westerly gale was blowing over the hilltops, as we 

 could see by the fast-flying clouds ; while below at the anchorage 

 we experienced a succession of fierce squalls (williwaws) from 

 various quarters, with intervals of complete calm ; so that the 

 ship kept swinging to and fro, and circling round her anchors 

 in a most erratic manner. Eventually one of the cables parted ; 

 but with the other, aided by steam, we managed to ride out 

 the gale, and to thoroughly satisfy ourselves that Wolsey Sound 

 was not one of the anchorages to be recommended to passing 

 vessels. From the translation given in " Burney's Voyages," 

 (vol. ii., p. lo), of the journal of Pedro Sarmiento de Gamboa, 

 who discovered the Trinidad Channel in the year 1580, it 

 would appear that this is the same anchorage which his sailors 

 named " Cache Diablo " (devil's box-on-the-ear), from the boister- 

 ous nature of the reception which they experienced. 



On the east side of Wolsey Sound the rock of the mountain 

 masses is for the most part a hard grey unfossiliferous limestone, 

 irregularly stratified, but sometimes showing a dip of 10° or 15° 

 to the westward. The most striking peculiarity of this rock 

 consists in its solubility under the influence of both fresh and 

 salt water, and it is this property that so often causes it to 

 present a jagged honey-combed appearance. I noticed that in 



