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Chap. III.]
PRINCE EDWARD'S ISLAND.
47
1840
their haunts, or, as the sealers term them, "rookeries," might be found.
The soundings during the night were very irregular. A dredge put overboard for a short time in ninety-five fathoms, at about five or six miles east of the island, came up quite full of a small white coral, and between thirty and forty different kinds of marine animals, corallines, flustræ, and sponges. At daylight in the morning we found that we had been carried so far to leeward by a strong tide, or more probably a current, and so heavy a swell prevailed from the westward, the forerunner of the coming gale, that I reluctantly gave up my intention of landing, rather than lose any more time in hopeless endeavours, and bore away for the Crozets. There did not seem to be any bay along the northeastern or south-eastern coast where a ship could find anchorage, unless it be just to the northward of the East Cape, where we supposed we saw a small sandy beach between two extensive patches of sea-weed; nor did Commander Crozier see any as he passed along the north shore the next day, in the Terror. He mentioned a remarkable detached tower-shaped rock, at some distance off the North Cape. This promontory he found by good observation to be in lat. 46° 53′ S. and long. 37° 33′ E., agreeing very nearly with Cook in the latitude, but differing considerably in the longitude. In the Erebus we were unfortunate in not getting observations near the southern part of the island: nor could we approach the smaller north-eastern island suffi-