DUMONT D’URVILLE 205 
sea was of considerable depth but soundings beyond 
100 fathoms could not be taken from the corvettes be- 
cause “ unfortunately all our sounding lines were almost 
useless.” While the corvettes were laying-to waiting for 
the return of the magnetic party and testing the useless 
sounding lines, the officer of the watch on the Astrolabe, 
M. Duroch, caught sight of unmistakable rocks on the 
shore. A second boat was got out under his command 
and the Zelee not to be behindhand sent a boat also under 
M. Dubouzet. The two crews pulled hard for the honour 
of being the first to reach the land and an exciting race 
was the result. The Astrolabe's boat had a good start 
and reached the nearest islet a few minutes before the 
other. The islet was one of a group of eight or ten ly- 
ing in a chain a few hundred yards off the ice-cliffs of 
the coast. There was a considerable surf breaking on it, 
but the men succeeded in landing and made prisoners of 
the previous inhabitants, a troop of non-resisting pen- 
guins. Following the ancient custom “ faithfully kept 
up by the English” the tricolour flag was run up and 
the land formally annexed to France; a bottle of Bor- 
deaux was emptied in honour of the great occasion and 
then all hands were set to work to collect scientific speci- 
mens. The 'animal kingdom was represented only by the 
penguins not a shell of any kind was to be found on the 
rocks, not even a trace of lichen could be discovered and 
a diligent search revealed only one dry seaweed that had 
probably been carried by birds. The only thing to be 
found was the rock itself and pieces of that were soon 
knocked off as specimens. It was noticed that fragments 
of stone obtained from the crops of penguins killed the 
day before were of exactly the same kind of rock ( D Ur- 
ville calls it a granite of various colours) as that which 
