104 



On the Occurrence of Marine Fossil- 

 iferous Rocks at Kerguelen Island. 



By Professor Ralph Tate 



[Read September 3, 1900.] 



Plates II.— III. 



Introduction. 



Kerguelen Island was discovered in 1772 by the commander 

 of a French vessel — Ives Julian de Kerguelen Tremaric. A 

 little later it was visited by Captain Cook. Since then it fcas 

 been visited by four scientific expeditions, the first under the 

 command of Sir James Ross in 1840 ; the second, that of the 

 Challenger Expedition in 1874, and the two Transit of Venus 

 Expeditions, 1874-75, one British, the other United States of 

 America. 



Trie island is in about 4-9" South latitude, is 100 miles long, 

 and about 50 miles wide, and is about 3,500 miles S.E. from the 

 Cape of G-ood Hope, and 3,000 miles from the extreme west coast 

 of Australia. 



Ross says of it, that it is one of the most barren spots on the 

 earth at the same distance from the pole. One of the names by 

 which it has been known to geographers is very appropriate — 

 Desolation Island, which was given to it by Captain Cook. Sir 

 Joseph Hooker describes it : — " The island presented a black 

 and rugged mass of sterile mountains, rising by parallel steppes 

 one above another in alternate slopes and precipices, terminating 

 in frightful naked and frowning cliffs, which dip perpendicularly 

 into the sea. The snow lying upon these slopes between the 

 black cliffs gives a most singularly striped and banded appear- 

 ance to the whole country, each band indicating a flow of 

 volcanic matter, for the island is covered with craters, whose 

 vents have given issue to stream upon stream of molten rock. 

 These were worn all along the coast into abrupt escarpments, 

 rendering a landing impracticable, except at the heads of the 

 sinuous bays." 



Kerguelen Island was visited in 1898 by Mr. Robert Hall, of 

 Melbourne, and his collections of lichens, algae, fungi, and rocks, 

 which have been described by experts in the •' Victorian 

 Naturalist, vols. XV. and XVI.," have supplemented previous 

 knowledge in the several departments. But these discoveries are 

 vastly transcended by that relating to the presence of marine 



