162 CARRINGTON ISLAND — HAT ISLAND. 



laminge. I searched diligently, but could find no cubes free, al- 

 though the rock was full of the small cavities from which they had 

 either been dislodged or had decayed under the influence of the 

 weather. Abundance of the slate can be procured free from this 

 objection ; and by trial I ascertained that a nail could be driven 

 through the layers almost as easily as through a shingle. On the 

 shores were large quantities of a deposite resembling hard clay, 

 which had formed when soft upon the rolled stones of the beach, 

 and, when hardened by the sun or other causes, had been broken 

 off, retaining, like a hollow mould, the 'shape of the stone upon 

 which it had been deposited. The island is surrounded by exten- 

 sive shoals. The beach is gradually making to the south, and will 

 doubtless join with the wide sand-flats to the south and west before 

 many years. 



At sundown we returned to the beach, where we bivouacked on 

 some soft sand, partially protected from the searching wind by a 

 thick growth of grease-wood, which was abundant. Our fires were 

 plentifully supplied from the drift-wood piled up on the shore. 



Wednesday^ April 10. — Up by sunrise. Breakfast, cold fried 

 bacon, roasted heron's eggs, and cold water. Morning cool — wind 

 from east, afterward shifted to north-east and north. Started for 

 a small island lying about five miles to the northward, to erect a 

 station upon it. We found it be a mere islet, one hundred feet in 

 height, and about a mile in ' circumference, having a long, narrow 

 sand-spit running off from it in a south-east dn*ection for a mile 

 and a-half. It is merely a pile of granitic conglomerate, with tu:^a 

 in large masses. Grease-wood seems to be the principal growth, and 

 the whole island abounds in the wild onion, now vividly green, 

 filling the air with its odour. Two species of cactus were also seen. 

 A cliff of slate rock occurred, preserving to a certain extent its 

 laminated structure, but so burned, altered, and filled with pebbles 

 as to be useless. The water, for a long distance around this islet, 

 is shallow, more especially to the westward. 



Having completed the station at this point, we returned to Fre- 

 mont's Island to cover the station there with cloth, so as to render 

 it visible from a distance. After a row of twelve miles we landed 

 on the south-west beach at noon. The water crossed was at first 

 quite shallow, but gradually deepened to eighteen, twenty-four, 

 twenty-seven, and thirty-three feet, and then moderately shoaled to 

 Fremont's Island, being eighteen feet deep within a hundred yards 

 of the shore. 



