Arrival at Saint Helena. »47 
fcarce upon the continent is plenty here : and that a Danifh 
Ihip, which by ficknefs had lcll great part of her crew, and 
had been refufed alhftance at the Cape, came down to this 
ifiand, and fending her boat afhore, fecured the guard, and 
took on board as many of the criminals as die thought proper 
to navigate her home : we concluded therefore that the Dutch, 
to prevent the refcue of their criminals in time to come, had 
given order to their people here to fuller no boat of any fo- 
reign nation to come alhore. 
On the 25 th, at three o’clock in the afternoon, we weigh- 
ed, with a light breeze at S. E. and put to fea. About an 
hour afterwards, we loft our Mailer, Mr. Robert Mollineux, 
a young man of good parts, but unhappily given to intem- 
perance, which brought on diforders that put an end to his 
life. 
We proceeded in our voyage homeward without any re- 
markable incident ; and in the morning of the 29th, we 
eroded our firft meridian, having circumnavigated the globe 
in the dire&ion from eaft to weft,, and confequently loft a day, 
for which we made an allowance at Batavia. 
At day- break, on the 1 ft of May, we faw the idand of St» 
Helena ; and at noon,, we anchored in the road before 
James’s Fort., 
We ftaid here till the 4th, to refredi, and Mr. Banks im- 
proved the time in making the complete circuit of the idand, 
and vifitingthe mod remarkable places upon it. 
It is fituated as it were in the middle of the vaft Atlantic 
ocean, being four hundred leagues diftant from the coaft of 
Africa, and fix hundred from that of America. It is the fum- 
mit of an immenfe mountain rifing out of the fea, which, at a 
little diftance albround it, is of an unfathomable depth, and 
is no more than twelve leagues long and fix broad. 
The feat of volcanoes has, without exception, been found 
to be-the higheft part of the countries in which they are 
found 1 . Astna and Vefuvius have no land higher than them- 
felves, in. their neighbourhood; Heda is the higheft hill in 
Iceland ; volcanoes are frequent in the higheft part of the 
Andes in South. America ; and the pike of Teneriffe is known 
to be the covering of fubterraneous fire : thefe are dill burn- 
ing, but there are innumerable other mountains which bear 
evident marks of fire that is now extindl, and has been fo 
from the time of our earlieft traditions : among thefe is Saint 
Helena, where the inequalities of the ground, in its external 
furface, are manifeftly the eft'edl of the finking, of the earth, 
for the oppofite ridges, though feparated always by deep, 
and fometimes by broad vallies, are exactly fimilar both 
appearance and direction ; and that the finking of the 
in thefe parts, was caufed by fubterraneous fire, is ec, 
