318 
ASCENSION. 
Several varieties of obsidian and pitchstone are found on the island 
in great quantities, but I could not learn under what circumstances. * * * § 
I found only one plant in my walk, a species of Euphorbia. On the 
higher hills plants grow in sufficient abundance to feed many goats. 
Turtle frequent the island from February to July, and are of large 
size. Those taken on board the Ceesar weighed from two to four 
hundred weight. The chief means of subsistence are goats, turtle, 
and fish. Attempts have been made to raise vegetables on the 
hills, but they have had little success in consequence of the rats with 
which the island abounds. 
Since the detention of Buonaparte the island has been fortified by 
a battery of fourteen guns erected on a projecting rock; and the Spy 
sloop, at the period of our visit, had been for a long time at anchor 
to leeward of the island. 
The Csesar made sail early in the afternoon, and continued on her 
voyage to England. 
Our impatience to finish the remainder of our voyage, greater 
in proportion as we approached its termination, was much lessened by 
the amusement we derived from watching the habits of our shipmate, 
the Orang-Outang. This animal, although described by Edwards -f*, 
Vosmaerj:, Buffon §, Camper ||, F. CuvierU, Tillesius**, and others, 
has not yet been so distinctly and fully pourtrayed either in his 
external characters or peculiar habits, as to render all further 
* The obsidian, which is most abundant, and of which I obtained specimens from an 
officer stationed on the island, is of a velvet black colour, and of a perfect vitreous lustre. 
Under the blowpipe it intumesces greatly, loses its black colour, and passes into a white 
porous mass. Its specific gravity is 2.312. The pitchstone becomes of a darker colour 
under the blowpipe, and porous on the surface, but melts into a slag with great difficulty. 
Its specific gravity is 2.4. 
f Gleanings. London, 1/58. p. 6. 
^ Description de l’espece de singe, aussi singulier que tres rare, nomme Orang-Outang 
de l’isle de Borneo par Vosmaer. 
§ Buffon, 4to. Suppl. Tom. vii. p. i. pi. 1. 
|| Natuunkundige verhandelingen van Petrus Camper over der Orang-Outang, 
if Annales des Museum, tom. xvi. p. 46. 
* * Appendix to Krusentern’s Voyage. 
