In the evening I landed with the botanist and Mr. Roe, but we found little that was worthy of our attention. The basis of the island is granitic, and covered with a shallow soil, formed of decayed vegetable matter, mixed with sand, which nourishes the stunted vegetation that thickly clothes the surface, particularly on the north-eastern, which is its most sheltered side.
No animals were observed, excepting some small quadrupeds, which were momentarily seen by Mr. Roe, and, from his description, were kangaroo-rats. On Goose Island, the bird from which it takes its name appeared to be abundant; but there was too much surf to permit our landing upon it, and we were not so much in want of fresh provisions as to induce our risking any damage to the boats: we found the bones of a whale which had been thrown up on the beach where we landed.
January 17.
The wind in the night veered to North-East by East, to which quarter the anchorage is much exposed; towards morning it blew fresh, but the anchor held well. At dawn of day, (17th) we got underweigh and steered through the islands; at noon, we were abreast of Termination Island, the latitude of which we found to be 34 degrees 32 minutes. Our friendly wind died away at midnight, and was succeeded by a short gale from the westward.
January 20.
On the 20th, at daylight, we were close to Bald Island, and in the afternoon took up an anchorage in King George the Third's Sound, between Seal Island and the first sandy beach, at the distance of half a mile to the eastward of a flat rock in seven fathoms, sand and weeds.
In the evening we landed on Seal Island, which we had much difficulty in effecting on account of the surf. Several seals were upon it, one of which we killed; and some penguins were also taken. On the summit of the island or rock, for it scarcely deserves the former appellation, the skeleton of a goat's head was found, and near it were the remains of a glass case bottle; both of which, we afterwards learnt, were left on the island by Lieutenant Forster, R.N., who put into this harbour in 1815, on his passage from Port Jackson to Europe, in the Emu, hired transport. We searched in vain for the bottle which Captain Flinders left there, containing an account of the Investigator's visit; my intention, in looking for this document, was not of course to remove it, but to ascertain its existence, and to add a few lines to the memorandum it contained.
Iguanas, geese, penguins, gulls, and seals of the hairy species, were the sole inhabitants of this rock. After leaving Seal Island, we landed on the sandy beach abreast of the anchorage; in doing this the boat filled, and the instruments were so wetted, that they were left on the beach to dry during our absence. Our ascent, from the hill being steep, and composed of a very loose drift sand, was difficult and fatiguing; but the beautiful flowers and plants, with which the surface of the hill was strewed, repaid us for our toil. These being all new to Mr. Cunningham fully occupied his attention, whilst I remained upon the summit, from whence a good view was obtained of the Eclipse Isles, and Vancouver's breakers, both of which are well laid down by Captain Flinders, whose correctness I had already many occasions to admire. An abundance of shells of the helix tribe (Helix bulimus) was found on the top and sides of the hill; and a calcareous substance was observed protruding from the ground in every part, as noticed both by Vancouver and Flinders;* the former also found it on the bare sandy summit of Bald Head, and supposed it to be coral, a circumstance from which he inferred that the level of the ocean must have sunk. Similar substances have since been discovered by Dr. Clarke Abel, near Simon's Town, at the Cape of Good Hope, and are described by him to be vegetables impregnated with carbonate of lime; but from the specimens we obtained, it would appear that it is neither coral, nor a petrified vegetable substance, but merely sand agglutinated by calcareous matter**.
(*Footnote. Vancouver volume 1 page 49. Flinders volume 1 page 63.)
(**Footnote. Vide Appendix, C.)