282 



TIERRA DEL FUEGO. 



June^ 1834' 



the solid rock. In Georgia, situated in the very same lati- 

 tude, Cook, speaking of the great ice-clifFs at the head of 

 every harbour^ says, " pieces were continually breaking off, 

 and floating out to sea, and a great fall happened while we 

 were in the bay, which made a noise like cannon/^ He adds. 



It can hardly be doubted, that a great deal of ice is formed 

 here in winter, which in the spring is broken off, and dis- 

 persed over the sea. Mr. Sorrell, the boatswain of the 

 Beagle, who has long been accustomed to these seas, in- 

 forms me, that at this season he has seen small icebergs, 

 with mud and gravel on them, floating from the shores. I 

 have heard from another quarter of the same circumstance. 

 Captain Hunter* says, he met numerous ice-islands in this 

 neighbourhood, and that " many were half black apparently 

 with earth from the land, to which they had adhered, or else 

 with mud from the bottom on which they had been forrhed.'^ 

 By the latter method large fragments might easily be trans- 

 ported, and unless the iceberg should be upset, they would 

 never be discovered. Nevertheless, the islands of ice float- 

 ing in the southern ocean, and especially those occurring far 

 south, appear generally to be quite free from all impurities 

 excepting the dung of seafowl. Captain Biscoe, w^ho ex- 

 tended his enterprising researches so far towards the ant- 

 arctic pole, informs me in a letter that he never observed in 

 a single instancef any mud or fragments of stone on the 

 numerous icebergs which he encountered during his voyage. 



Glaciers occur at the head of the sounds along the whole 

 western coast of the southern part of South America. Look- 

 ing at the chart I find sixteen places mentioned: besides 

 these I know of several others, such as those in the Beagle 

 channel and at the foot of Mount Sarmiento. The sounds, 

 moreover, were not all traced to the head, and it is in this 

 part that the glaciers most frequently occur. Of the sixteen 

 referred to, many include several frozen arms coming down 



* Hunter's Voyage to Port Jackson, p. 102. 



f Mr. Sorrell says, that he once saw an iceberg to the eastward of 

 South Shetland, with a considerable block of rock lying on it. 



