AMSTERDAM ISLAND. 15^ 
never been called in aid (at least I do not recollect it has) of 
such an hypothesis. The power that was required to heave 
up Heckla and the volcanic mountains near Kamskatka, and 
which can hurl rocks some thousand feet into the air, may be 
supposed to produce, by its reactive force, a very consider- 
able impression on the globe of the earth, especially when 
exerted near the poles, and if it can be supposed to act in a 
direction, not to the centre, but perpendicular to its axis. — 
But I am rambling into the wilds of theory, whilst my business 
at present is only with facts. 
If the smoke and the fires of Amsterdam had excited our 
curiosity, the discovery of two or three hmnan beings running 
along the shore, as our ships approached it, on so miserable 
a spot, and so distant from any other land except the little 
neighbouring island of St. Paul, caused a still greater degree of 
astonishment. On landing we found five men, very ill dressed 
and squalid in their appearance, three of whom were French, 
and two English. Their chief was a Frenchman, of the name 
of Perron, who informed us that tliey had bseii lauded, 
about five months before, from a small vessel fitted out of 
the Isle of France, for the purpose of preparing a cargo of 
seal-skins for the China market ; that the weather when they 
landed was bad, and continued incessantly so very boisterous 
for forty days as to prevent all comniunicatioii with their 
vessel, which at the end of that time put to sea and con- 
tinued her voyage to Nootka Sound ; and tliat they did 
not expect her back for twelve months to come. That, by 
her being thus so unexpectedly driven away, they were left 
destitute of every kind of provision, except a httlc hai'd bis- 
