616 Mr. J. Y. Buchanan on Geological Work 



necessity of being at any time prepared to join the ship in case of change 

 of weather, rendered any expedition far from the coast impossible. 

 Viewed from the sea, the rocky shores are seen to be surmounted by an 

 undulating country covered with herbage, which, as the height increases, 

 passes into a barren mountain cluster with many sharp and sometimes 

 perfectly conical peaks. The highest of these were covered with snow, 

 and for the greater part of the day enveloped in mist ; the lower ones 

 were mostly of a bright brick-red colour. "Where the coast cliffs could 

 be viewed they showed layers of compact and brecciated lavas of no great 

 thickness. Having landed at the mouth of a watercourse, I traversed 

 the beach to the westward until I reached the next stream, which I 

 followed some distance inland. "When the swampy moss-covered ground, 

 whose uniformly dull green colour was relieved here and there by the 

 snowy plumage of the nesting albatross, had been left behind, the stream 

 was found to flow over an apparently very recent stream of black cel- 

 lular lava, whose ripples and eddies ' were still perfectly fresh, except in 

 the very centre, where they had suffered some slight abrasion ; of any 

 hollowing action on the part of the water, however, there was no trace, 

 the windings and little waterfalls being still determined by the original 

 inequalities of the solidifying rock. The lava was basaltic, containing 

 much olivine. Close by the bed of the stream rose several of the above- 

 mentioned red conical hills. One of these, the highest within reach, and 

 the only one I had time to ascend, consisted of a heap of loose scoriae 

 dipping away on all sides at a regular and very steep angle. Few of 

 these pieces of scoriae were more than six inches in diameter ; and had it 

 not been for the occasional clumps of moss, which alone afforded a sure 

 footing, the ascent would have been a matter of considerable time. At 

 the top was a perfectly conical pit, and slightly below the summit, on the 

 north side, were three smaller and similar pits. The scoriae of which 

 the hill is made up consisted of a highly cellular red ground-mass, with 

 indications of augite, without, however, any perfect crystals being dis- 

 cernible. Besides the red scoriae, there were some of a chocolate-brown 

 colour, with frothy exterior and compact kernel. The shape of some of 

 them resembled the almond-shaped bombs found in many volcanic dis- 

 tricts ; but I did not notice any with the dense outside and highly cellular 

 core so characteristic of the true volcanic bomb. Besides this hill there 

 were five or six others precisely similar in appearance, and rising out of 

 the same valley or depression in the ground. Erom the top of the hill 

 this depression could be seen to be bounded, towards the interior, by a 

 semicircular cliff of rock, in some parts columnar, and open towards the 

 sea. Above this cliff rose the snow-covered cones and peaks of the ul- 

 terior, which, wherever the snow had been removed, showed the same 

 red colour and steep sides, so that there can be little doubt of their being 

 similarly formed to those on the lower ground. On leaving the stream- 

 bed and returning to the eastward over the spur of the mountain, the 



