8 
ST. PAUL’S ROCKS 
CHAP. 
gained a deeper part, it darted away, leaving a dusky train of 
ink to hide the hole into which it had crawled. 
While looking for marine animals, with my head about two 
feet above the rocky shore, I was more than once saluted by a 
jet of water, accompanied by a slight grating noise. At first I 
could not think what it was, but afterwards I found out that it 
was this cuttle-fish, which, though concealed in a hole, thus 
often led me to its discovery. That it possesses the power of 
ejecting water there is no doubt, and it appeared to me that it 
could certainly take good aim by directing the tube or siphon 
on the under side of its body. From the difficulty which these 
animals have in carrying their heads, they cannot crawl with 
ease when placed on the ground. I observed that one which I 
kept in the cabin was slightly phosphorescent in the dark. 
St. Paul’s Rocks. —In crossing the Atlantic we hove-to, 
during the morning of February i 6th, close to the island of St. 
Paul’s. This cluster of rocks is situated in o° 58' north latitude, 
and 29 0 15' west longitude. It is 540 miles distant from the 
coast of America, and 350 from the island of Fernando 
Noronha. The highest point is only fifty feet above the level 
of the sea, and the entire circumference is under three-quarters 
of a mile. This small point rises abruptly out of the depths of 
the ocean. Its mineralogical constitution is not simple ; in 
some parts the rock is of a cherty, in others of a felspathic 
nature, including thin veins of serpentine. It is a remarkable 
fact that all the many small islands, lying far from any con¬ 
tinent, in the Pacific, Indian, and Atlantic Oceans, with the 
exception of the Seychelles and this little point of rock, are, I 
believe, composed either of coral or of erupted matter. The 
volcanic nature of these oceanic islands is evidently an extension 
of that law, and the effect of those same causes, whether 
chemical or mechanical, from which it results that a vast 
majority of the volcanoes now in action stand either near sea- 
coasts or as islands in the midst of the sea. 
The rocks of St. Paul appear from a distance of a brilliantly 
white colour. This is partly owing to the dung of a vast 
multitude of seafowl, and partly to a coating of a hard glossy 
substance with a pearly lustre, which is intimately united to the 
surface of the rocks. This, when examined with a lens, is 
