200 whales' bones. 



nothing better to load them with. I landed 

 upon one of the islands and ascended to the 

 highest point to look out ; there was some ice 

 visible in different directions around, but I 

 could discover nothing alive upon it, so I 

 set the boat's crew to load up with drift-wood, 

 quantities of which, of excellent quality and in 

 every stage of preservation, strewed the shores 

 of this island. 



While they were so engaged I walked about 

 and geologised. The island was in every 

 respect similar to those which I have already 

 described ; a great deal of drift-wood lay far 

 above high-water mark, and in positions where 

 it could not possibly have been driven by 

 storms in the present relative levels of land 

 and sea. 



Numbers of w^hales' bones also lay upon 

 this island from the sea-level up to the top 

 of the rocks, which may have been thirty- 

 five to forty feet in height. Those bones lying 

 high above the sea-level were invariably 

 much more decayed and moss-grown than 

 those lower down. Some of them were of 

 enormous size. In one slight depression of 

 the island, about ten feet above the sea-level, 

 I counted eleven enormous jawbones, all lying 



