68 Proceedings of the Royal Physical Society. 
One Grimsby headman adds a crumb of interest. He 
says, after the usual description of the rock and its appear- 
ance, “like a big hay-stack, and covered by bird’s dung—in 
fact, quite white.” “There is a ledge round the island, on 
which it is possible to land and walk, and the high portion 
rises precipitously from this. There are also great reefs not 
awash all round, and extending for miles. Grey Seals 
frequent the rocks. Gulls, Cormorants, Gannets, and many 
other sorts of birds nest there, also Kittiwakes” (viva voce to 
Mr John Cordeaux; in letter to J. A. H.-B. from J. C., 6th 
November 1894). 
Mr G. C. Bennett—in a letter to Mr J. Cordeaux—says, 
1st November 1894: “I have just seen a man who landed 
on Rockall about thirty-nine years ago (say 1856 or thereby). 
He was then a sailor on board Colonel Gascoigne’s yacht 
‘Myra.’ He says that the yacht lay-to at some distance off the 
rock; the yacht party went off in boats, and landed on part of 
the rock which slopes down to the water’s edge After shooting 
a quantity of Cormorants, Kittiwakes, and Sea-Gulls, they 
returned. At ordinary times the seas wash over the rock, 
and it is only after very fine weather a landing can be 
effected.” 
Of a different nature altogether was a very clever but 
insincere article printed in Chambers’s Journal, which related 
an entirely supposititious personal visit to the rock by a 
person who had never been there, and which was allowed to 
appear—as indeed it was supposed to be—as a genuine record. 
The article, indeed, was simply a vesumé of Basil Hall’s 
relation, and of what had previously been written—placed 
under the first personal pronoun—but, fortunately, in the few 
concluding lines the cloven hoof was detected, in the state- 
ment that the Little Auk was found to be nesting upon it. 
This promptly led to the detection of the fraud. We would 
not dwell upon this hoax at such length, were it not that 
years afterwards we find—so late as the 1st November 1894 
—a correspondent from Lloyds’ Agency (!) in a private letter, 
expressing himself thus, in reply to inquiries: “ About the 
best description of the rock I have ever perused appeared in a 
1 Italics are mine.—H. -B. 
