[[1]] Copy *1
H.M.S. Erebus, Berkeley
Sound, Faulkland Isl[an]ds, June 1st 1842.
To Charles Lyell Esquire
My dear Sir, *2
Two years & three quarters have elapsed since this Expedition left England, & yet I have not paid the debt of gratitude I owe you:-- nor even acknowledged it in the shape of a letter. Owning a fault being the first step towards amendment, I now do so: & when I frankly tell you that there is no excuse to be made for my past negligence, you will, in your usual kindness, excuse it: & accept of this letter as a proof that I have not forgotten so grand a friend as Mr. Lyell, although my carelessness has led me to omit my duty towards him.
The interest you took in these Ships will have, doubtless, impelled you to watch the reports of their tardy progress; & the correspondence you keep up with my father has informed you, to a degree, how far my own objects & his have been promoted by my attaching myself to this Expedition. I need not, therefore, lead you to the different Ports at which we have successively touched; but shall do my best to render this letter interesting by endeavouring to describe what appeared to me most worthy of remark. Though little novelty was met with till we approached Kerguelen's Land, I cannot pass the Cape de Verds without again thanking you for Darwin's delightful volume: for it was at Port Praya, that I first had ocular proof, not only of the truth & accuracy of his remarks, but also of the skill with which he treats his subjects, & the beautiful language in which he relates clothes them. Your kind present is now indeed "a well thumbed book": for all the Officers send to me to borrow it. Nor do I know which
[[2]] comes the most frequently under my eye, "the Geological Researcher," or the little black profile (by Edouart) *3 that adorns the (so called) Picture Gallery of my cabin, & which occupies a conspicuous position between Baron Humbolt *4 & my grandfather.
Captain Cook's account of Desolation Island or (Kerguelen's Land) is most excellent, -- as far as it goes, -- but leaves the reader so much in the dark as to the Natural History of the island, that the opinion given to us by Geologists, before quitting England, led us to expect that it was formed of Slate. On approaching it, this supposition appeared near the truth, for the hills were all marked with long parallel horizontal ledges, alternating with low steep cliffs, -- & as the snow lay on the ledges, while the cliffs were bare, the appearance they presented was highly curious:-- almost as if huge ribbons were stretched across the land. [A scetch of the Island appears here. Underneath it is described "Entrance to Christmas harbour, Kerguelen's Land."]
As soon, however, as a landing was effected, nothing but Trass rocks were found, & all the mountains were composed of stream upon stream of various Lavas:-- some of these streams, in cooling, formed a common whinstone, others a Breccia or Volcanic conglomerate, -- whilst very many assumed a beautiful basaltic configuration, where the pillars, though on a much smaller scale, were as regular as those of the Giants' Causeway or Staffa. Various Quartzes, & especially Zeolites abounded: particularly on the rocks of a looser texture, strongly reminding me of minerals on the Kilpatrick & other
[[3]] hills in the neighbourhood of Glasgow. Abundance of Fossil woods, with details of the situations in which they occurred, were sent home to the Geological Society by D[octor] McCormack[sic]: *5 I need not therefore describe them to you. The Animals & Birds were all marine. Two or 3 of the latter are probably peculiar to the Island: especially a species of chionis, very different from that of this place, & a most singular night Petrel, which Mr. Swainson *6 would say, "represents" the owl among aquatic Birds. Of Insects there were but 3 species & very scarce; a Curculio, -- a small apterous Moth, & a Spider. Plants were more abundant than I had expected, especially Sea weeds, & Lichens & Mosses, -- which to me are still my favorites. There were also several Jungermannia, but not in fruit.
Like all places, in or near the Antarctic Regions, the climate of Kerguelen's Land is very uniform throughout the year. Cook found much snow in January: & though there was always a great deal during the winter months ([June to Spetmeber]) while we were there, yet I remember the hills being, at one time, quite bare. The weather is, probably, always cold & peculiarly stormy. We could not get to any distance from the Ships in boats, without imminent danger of being blown out to sea, or swamped. The plants are all perennial, of South American forms & can endure a considerable degree of cold without sensible injury. Ice bergs are sometimes seen off the coast (we observed 2): but they never appear to form on any part of the Island. One of these Bergs was stranded & went to pieces within a couple of miles of the Ships, on the weather shore:-- a circumstance which brings to my mind the great interest as one excited among Geologists respecting "Erratic Boulders":-- a circum subject on which your son, as I see perceive by the Athenaeum, has been writing much. I saw no
[[4]] transported Rocks during my rambles, but Mr. Robertson of the "Terror," found a mass of what I take to be a Syenitic Granite, near the shore, & which, there is no doubt, was deposited there by a Berg. But more of this subject, when among the Bergs themselves. Van Diemaen's Land was the next Island that we visited; Tasmania, as the Natives now prefer to have it called. There Sir John Franklin *7 & all the inhabitants received us with open arms. My time was entirely devoted to the plants & mosses, so that I cannot say even as much of the Geology, as does Mr. Darwin from the materials collected during his short stay. Van Diemaen's Land was the first, out of the 11 Islands at which we touched, which is not wholly Volcanic: & certainly it is the most English--like & delightful place that any of us had visited, either in the New or Old World. One of the most interesting objects I saw there, connecting Botany & Geology, was a beautiful fossil--trunk, standing erect & completely embedded in a stream of Lava; the woody tissue is preserved in a most singular manner & is of a pure white color. The external portion of the wood & bark is converted into a hard & beautiful Agate, while the inner layers separate easily from each other. Each layer again may be divided into as many vertical lamella as there are fibres of wood in the circumference of that layer. Hence each of these ultimate lamella consists of a single series of parallel woody fibres held together by the cellular tissue of the medullary Rays, & is so exquisitely clear & transparent, that the glandular tissue of coniferous plants is here rendered more distinctly evident, than I have ever seen it in any section of living wood. I enclose a small piece, for you to subject to the microscope. Since leaving Hobart Town, some rough notes which I had written upon this fossil tree & put into Mr. Gunn's *8 hands, have been printed in the "Transactions of the Natural History Society"
[[5]] of Tasmania & published thus abroad in the world:-- I much regret this, as they never were written for, nor intended to meet, the public eye. And though I appreciate the honor which it was thus designed to confer upon me, I am sorry, both to see so crude a performance thus dispersed & to observe that the Printer has not been able to decypher[sic] my words, & has evinced a more inexcusable disregard of the King's (or Lieutenant Governor's) English, than had been been[sic] displayed in what I actually wrote.
From Van Dieman's Land we sailed for Lord Auckland's Island, whose Natural History resembles that of New Zealand, though I was surprized to find some Pseudo--Tropical forms of plants, reaching such a high Southern latitude:-- for instance, Arborescent Composite & Araliaceae, Myrtaceae & small Tree--Ferns. The rocks are Volcanic.
The same remarks hold good in Campbell's Islands, two degrees farther to the Southward than Lord Auckland's Island.
The first Icebergs we fell in with, (lat[itude] 63° South,) were good fair samples of the immense size & tabular form of these masses of Ice in the Antarctic Regions. Generally speaking, they are square blocks of Ice, with flat tops & perpendicular faces: & from the constant cold Temperature of the Latitudes in which they occur, even during the summer months, they seem to increase their original bulk from the falls of snow, often attaining a height of 100 --150 feet, -- & they are commonly half a mile long or square, sometimes as much as 5 miles. These Icebergs must often, contain large masses of rock, imbedded in their substance, but rarely exposed to view, from being hidden & covered with snow. It is, doubtless, from this cause that among the many thousands we encountered, so few seemed to be transporting fragments. On the morning of the second day of January, 1840, in latitude 66° South, the Officers of the
[[6]] Watch saw an Ice Berg, with a black mass attached to it; we landed on it & brought off some specimens of a black loose Volcanic Rock, containing many chrystals of Olivine. [A sketch of this Ice Berg appears here.] The accompanying sketch from memory of the Berg & rock, may serve to show the comparative size of the Land &Water. We were then to the Northward of the Pack, in the Regions where the Icebergs begin to feel the influence of a warmer Air & Sea & where they commence dissolving by slow degrees, & gradually go on lessening, as the constant S[outh] W[est] winds drive them farther to the North. In this cus case & in all others that I have seen, the rock appeared as if imbedded in a hole, which is probably caused by the black substance radiating heat & so thus melting the Ice that is in immediate contact with it, faster than the Sun's rays can (unaided) act upon other parts of the Berg.
The first land which we made was in lat[itude] 71° S[outh]. It consisted of an immense mass of mountains, covered with Snow & Ice, from their summits to the Sea, except in a very few spots, where Avalanches had broken away from the perpendicular faces of the the Cliffs. The form of this land was most irregular, but all of it very high & raised into magnificent peaks. The mountains seemed to rise, nearly from the water's edge, where the coast was bound with huge Ice Packs & Bergs, & all the valleys & harbours choked up with prodigious blocks of Ice. The entire line of land, which we traced continuously from Lat[itude] 71° to 78°, was grand beyond anything I could have conceived, & exalted as is the opinion, which (from pictures in books) I have formed, of the appearance of the Andes, as seen from the ocean[.] I cannot imagine the possibility of their rivalling the mountains of this Antarctic Continent; for these, as I have before stated, rise immediately from the Sea, attaining an average elevation of 6,000 feet, many of the Peaks are
[[7]] 7,000 & 8,000 feet, & one or two of them 12,000 & 13,000! Their forms, too, are highly beautiful; not round & lumpy, but piled up of pinnacles & domes, many of which are pictures in themselves:-- Taking all together, they presented an unrivalled groupe, of which the eye is never tired. Much do I wish that I could convey to you any idea of the varying & lovely tints of those elements which formed the foreground & background of the view:-- for, when we had fine weather, owing to the transparency of the atmosphere, Sea, Sky, Clouds & Ice, all seemed to borrow beauties one of another & to arrange themselves, in a harmonious whole, such as I never expect to behold elsewhere.
A landing was never effected on the main, nor would it have been prudent to bring the Ships near the land, even could we then have got over the Ice which skirts the shore. Twice our boats went to Islands, which, from being exposed to the Sea often have the Pack Ice washed away at the watermark. One one, belonging to a small groupe, in about Lat[itude] 72°, there was a Colony, or Rookery as they are called, of Penguins, which covered a great part of the rock, for the island was nothing more, it was all Volcanic, but there were several varieties of the Trass. Not a trace of vegetation to be seen, even of the lowest tribes of plants; nor any animal, but these Penguins, which were actually disputing one with another for possession. Much difficulty was experienced, both in disembarking & on regaining the Ships. A little Syenite was also found, apparently from a Boulder.
In lat[itude] 72° 31' S[outh], we dredged in 300 fathoms deep of water, & to our great delight, brought up the Net with many fine marine Animals; chiefly Mollusca, Crustacea, Corals & Bicellaria. Also some Ophiura -- thus showing[sic] that the Ocean teems with animal life, even at such an immense depth & in these remote latitudes.
[[8]] The pebbles thus obtained were all of Trass rock & Syenite. Of the latter rock one beautiful mass came up, about 4lbs weight, upon which only one marine animal had begun to grow: from which circumstance (whereas all the other stones were covered with Klustrae[?]) & from it's edges being clean & sharp, presenting all the appearance of a fresh fracture, it seems to follow that this piece was recently deposited by an Iceberg. And if we, in one dredging, under such unfavorable circumstances, happen to pick up one piece, to what an extent must not, or may not, the bottom of the sea be covered?
In Lat[itude] 76° South, we landed upon another Island & as we pulled in the boat, along f its shores, looking for a spot where to jump out, I took particular notice of the numerous facilities offered by this piece of land, for the transportation, not only of large blocks, but of pebbles, water--worn Boulders, Sand & Silt. The whole workshop of Nature was here opened to us, & her Artificers were going through their various manipulations. The Island was low, consisting of a sloping hill[?] towards the centre & a perpendicular cliff all round. From one end, an immense Berg stretched out into the Sea, so that the junction of the Land & Berg could not be well defined. Many smaller lesser bergs & small Pack Ice, surrounded it, being strewed on the sea: half--ashore or aground. Several pieces had attached themselves to little rocks, & when they gained bulk, would be washed away, by the sea detaching a portion of their first support & future nucleus. The Pack Ice was full of pebbles & sand (carried from the hills above by small avalanches) quite speckled black & white in some cases. Other fragments of Pack Ice had abutted on the very steep pebbly beach which occasionally occurred at the base of the cliffs, & had wafted away a good cargo of these round pebbles. Many diminutive Bergs were tipped with variously sized rocks & stones, which had broken off from the cliffs. There are, however, two other circumstances in the