NARRATIVE OF THE CRUISE. 
88 £ 
Falkland Islands. 
The ship had a fairly fine passage across from Magellan Strait to .the Falkland 
Islands, although the early part of the 22nd January was so thick that the land was not 
seen until close to the Jason Cays. The ship rounded the East Jason Cay at 4 p.m. on 
that day, and was steered along the north side of the islands, rounding Cape Carysfort, 
at 8.30 a.m. on the 23rd, and anchoring in Port Stanley at 3 p.m. the same day. 
A question having arisen as to whether the sea level at the Falkland Islands was 
not becoming gradually lowered, or, what comes to the same thing, whether the islands 
were not being gradually elevated, instructions had been received to investigate the 
matter. 
On the ship’s arrival at Stanley a tide-pole was set up at once, and a party was 
landed to register the tide night and day. Inquiries were then made respecting the 
Fig. 327. — Stanley, Falkland Islands. 
reasons which had induced the residents to assert that an alteration in the sea level 
was in progress. On this point no satisfactory information could be obtained, nor indeed 
any precise reason as to why they had come to such a conclusion, — except that -as usual 
that mythical personage the oldest inhabitant had stated that the tides now-a-days were 
quite different from those he remembered when first he came to the island, just as old 
sailors are never tired of asserting that the storms now experienced are by no means so 
violent as they were when they first went to sea in that fine old clipper the “ Three 
Grandmothers” of Shields. It therefore seemed that the inhabitants of Stanley had 
reported an alteration of sea level without having taken any pains to investigate the 
matter even in the roughest manner, for they could show no difference in the tidal 
marks on the beach, nor any alteration of the sea level with reference to the many rocks 
in the neighbourhood of the harbour, some of which being covered at high water, and 
others a foot or two above high water, afford excellent standard marks for testing a 
