4 TOPOGRAPHY 



greatest breadth sixteen hundred yards. According 

 to the most recent measurements, there are in it 

 and the adjacent portion of the isthmus belonging to 

 Great Britain, seventy or eighty acres of land capable 

 of being cultivated : the entire area is estimated 

 at two hundred acres, but scarcely forty acres are at 

 present under cultivation, and of these more than 

 fifteen are laid out in gardens and parterres. The 

 whole surface of the rock is irregular and rugged, 

 uneven in its most level parts. To the botanist in 

 search of plants, the ascent or rather scramble to the 

 most elevated parts of the rock is very fatiguing, 

 and often dangerous on account of the ridges running 

 in all directions. A sharp ridge runs from north to 

 south, and forms the termination of one part of the 

 summit on which a person may sit en cheval with 

 perfect safety, on one side looking over Catalan Bay 

 and its little village with the Mediterranean beyond, 

 and on the other side, the town of Gibraltar with its 

 noble fortifications and its hanging gardens. The 

 smaller vessels in the bay, scarcely visible from this 

 distant height look like so many specks upon a mirror. 

 The rock terminates in a sugar-loaf point at its south- 

 eastern extremity, which is fourteen hundred and 

 thirty-nine feet in height. In this neighbourhood 

 is situated the famous " Mediterranean stair" cut out of 

 the solid rock. The signal station is placed on almost 

 the central point of the summit, twelve hundred and 

 seventy-six feet above the level of the sea. The rock 

 terminates towards the north in a conical-shaped 

 mass, rising nearly perpendicularly, and best seen 



