SOUTH SHETLAND ISLANDS. ]63 



it lies in latitude 62° 10' S. and longitude 56° 3c/ W., 

 approximately thirty-five miles from the nearest point 

 of the remaining islands, the South Foreland of King 

 George's Island. The circumference is small, but seems 

 subject to variations brought about by volcanic activity, 

 as neither the estimates of its size nor those of its 

 elevation and outline correspond with one another. 

 While Powell in the early twenties states that he saw 

 a great crater at an altitude of about seventy-five feet 

 above sea-level on the west side of the island, where 

 it is 180 feet high, Dumont d'Urville gives the height 

 of the island as 480 to 500 feet, with a greatest diameter 

 of something over a nautical mile and a circumference of 

 three to four nautical miles. All accounts on the other 

 hand agree in stating that every visit to the island 

 proved it to be in a state of solfatara activity, and also 

 that the several emissions of gases proceeded from fissures 

 mostly near the coast, rising from it, according to D'Urville, 

 to a height of about 300 feet and upwards. All these 

 active manifestations took place on the west side of the 

 island, which, like the northern and western coasts, rises 

 steep and abrupt from the sea ; the south side alone is 

 lower and flatter, and thousands of penguins were found 

 on it. The island is described as conical ; Wilkes, with 

 whom D'Urville agrees, calls its shape that of a flattened 

 cupola. The sides seemed to be furrowed by the cor- 

 rugations so characteristic of stratified volcanoes, but this 

 is probably true of only the more loosely constructed 

 parts. Near the summit streams of lava are clearly 

 indicated, and over them glowing red ashes or tufa ; the 

 slopes are of the same deep red tint, and have probably 

 been entirely disintegrated by the action of the solfataras. 

 All who have visited the island testify to the suffocatino- 

 fumes of the gases exhaled. No landing has as yet been 

 effected. The boats of D'Urville's expedition were com- 

 pelled to content themselves with sailing round it at no 



