348 JOURNAL. 



reported there are some plains and arable land. I watched them 

 ascend up a very high peak, and then went ashore with Glennie and 

 others to walk about and dine ; I found His Lordship's party re- 

 turned from their walk much disappointed. The boatswain of the 

 brig, who had been for several days on the island some years before, 

 had undertaken to guide them ; but instead of leading them to the 

 ridge of the highest land, he only conducted them with much labour 

 to the top of a fearful pinnacle, whose height is about 1500 feet ; but 

 as it is surrounded by still higher rocks, nothing more was to be 

 seen from it than from below. Lord Cochrane brought from the 

 summit a piece of heavy black porous lava ; and under that he found 

 some dark hardened clay full of cells, the inside of which appear 

 slightly vitrified. The island seems chiefly composed of this porous 

 lava ; the strata of which, being crossed at right angles by a very 

 compact black lava, dip on the eastern side of the island about 22°, 

 and on the west side 16°, pointing to the centre of the island as an 

 apex. The valleys are exceedingly fertile, and watered by copious 

 streams, which occasionally form small marshes, where the panke 

 grows very luxuriantly, as well as water-cress and other aquatic 

 plants. The soil is generally of a reddish brown : there are several 

 small hills and banks of bright-red clay ; and I thought I found 

 puzzolano, and some fragments of coarse pumice-stone. The 

 little valley where the town is, or rather was, is exceedingly beau- 

 tiful. It is full of fruit trees, and flowers, and sweet herbs, now 

 grown wild : near the shore it is covered with radish and sea-side 

 oats. The colony of Juan Fernandez had been used as a place of 

 confinement for state-prisoners. I do not know in what precise year 

 it was founded ; but it could not have been long before the revolution 

 in Chile, as I find over the door of the ruined church the following 

 inscription : — 



" La casa de Dios es la puerta del cielo y 

 Se coloco, 24 Setembre, de 18] 1." 



A small fort was situated on the sea-shore, of which there is 

 now nothing visible but the ditches and part of one wall. Another, 



