32 
Geology of Kerguelen s Land . 
The latter rock contains much hornblende, with a 
ferruginous-coloured surface. The base and sides are 
scattered over with loose pieces of slate, intermixed with 
masses of trap. There are three other gorges by which 
the hill may be ascended. The irregular structure of this 
hill, with its large crater-shaped summit, and the con¬ 
fused intermingling of the trap, and singular arenaceous 
rock, indicate vast disturbance at the period it was thrown 
up from below. 
A little to the southward of this hill, a bed of coal, 
one foot in thickness and ten in length, breaks out in a 
cleft at the base of a hill, along a water-course, having 
a south-east and north-west direction. The coal is very 
light and friable, with a beautiful black glossy fracture; 
and, like cannel coal, does not soil the fingers. 
It is covered by a porphyritic amygdaloid and green¬ 
stone rock ; and not a vestige of shale or slate is to be 
found in the same hill. In the adjacent hill south of 
this, another bed of coal appears at the surface for 
about 20 feet, also in a deep cleft in the mountain. 
About 20 yards up a water-course, and 50 feet above the 
sea, the direction is the same as the last. The coal, how¬ 
ever, is very different, having a slaty fracture, and dull 
brownish-black colour: it burnt very well; the boat's 
crew having cooked their provisions with it. The bed is 
2 feet in thickness, and appears again on the opposite 
side of the water-course, which is 12 feet across, and 
traversed by a small dyke of basalt, 3 inches in breadth. 
The superincumbent rock, as in the last instance, is 
amygdaloidal greenstone. 
In a south-east direction from the head of the bay is 
an opening between the mountain ranges, found to ter¬ 
minate in part of White Bay. The isthmus, five miles 
across, consisting of a few low ridges and a valley, is of 
