Sept. 1835. 



VOLCANOES. 



455 



nowhere else. As I shall refer to this subject again^ I will 

 only here remark^ as forming a striking character on first 

 landing, that the birds are strangers to man. So tame and 

 unsuspecting were they^, that they did not even understand 

 what was meant by stones being thrown at them ; and quite 

 regardless of us, they approached so close that any number 

 might have been killed with a stick. 



The Beagle sailed round Chatham Island, and anchored in 

 several bays. One night I slept on shore, on a part of the 

 island where some black cones — the former chimneys of the 

 subterranean heated fluids — were extraordinarily numerous. 

 From one small eminence, I counted sixty of these trun- 

 cated hillocks, which were all surmounted by a more or less 

 perfect crater. The greater number consisted merely of 

 a ring of red scoriae, or slags, cemented together : and their 

 height above the plain of lava, was not more than from fifty 

 to a hundred feet. From their regular form, they gave the 

 country a workshop appearance, which strongly reminded me 

 of those parts of Staffordshire where the great iron-foun- 

 dries are most numerous. 



The age of the various beds of lava was distinctly marked 

 by the comparative growth, or entire absence, of vegetation. 

 Nothing can be imagined more rough and horrid than the 

 surface of the more modern streams. These have been aptly 

 compared to the sea petrified in its most boisterous moments : 

 no sea, however, would present such irregular undulations, 

 or would be traversed by such deep chasms. All the craters 

 are in an extinct condition ; and although the age of the dif- 

 ferent streams of lava could be so clearly distinguished, it is 

 probable they have remained so for many centuries. There 

 is no account in any of the old voyagers of any volcano on this 

 island having been seen in activity ; yet since the time of 

 Dampier (1684), there must have been some increase in the 

 quantity of vegetation, otherwise so accurate a person would 

 not have expressed himself thus : — " Four or five of the east- 

 ernmost islands are rocky, barren, and hilly, producing neither 



