were seen here, and only a very few birds. At four o'clock on the 16th,
they set sail with a pretty favourable wind, but a cloudy sky, passed
Point St Anne and Cape Round, the Cape Shutup of others, and
brought-to, within a league and a half from Cape Forward, where they
were becalmed for two hours. Between the two points last mentioned, a
distance, according to Byron, of seven leagues S.W. by S. course,
Bougainville says there are four bays in which a vessel may anchor, and
that two of them are separated from each other by a cape of a very
singular appearance and structure. It rises more than 150 feet above the
level of the sea, and consists entirely of petrified shells lying in
horizontal strata; a line of 100 fathom, it is added, did not reach the
bottom of the sea at the foot of it. This very extraordinary monument of
the revolutions which our globe has undergone, does not seem to have
been noticed by the geologists.

Cape Forward, or St Isidore, as it has been named by some navigators,
and which is the most southerly point of the American continent, lies in
lat. 54 deg. 5' 45". It is a perpendicular rock, the top of which is covered
with snow, but some trees are to be seen on its sides. The sea below it
is too deep for anchorage; however, between two hillocks which shew on
part of its surface, there is a little bay provided with a rivulet,
where, in case of necessity, a vessel might anchor in about fifteen
fathom. Having ascertained these and some other matters during the calm
which allowed him to use his pinnace, Bougainville returned on board,
and set out for Cape Holland. But the wind veering to S.W., he went in
search of the harbour which M. de Gennes named French Bay, and anchored
between the two points which constitute its entrance, in ten fathom.
Here he resolved to take in wood and water for his voyage across the
Pacific Ocean, as it had been so favourably described by that gentleman,
and as he himself was ignorant of the remaining navigation of the
straits. But having ascertained, however, that the anchorage was not
safe here, and that the boats could not get up the river, except at high
water, he removed eastward to a small bay, in which in 1765, as related
in the account of Byron's voyage, he had taken in wood for the Falkland
Islands, and which had been named after him Bougainville's Bay. Here
then he anchored in twenty-eight fathom, and afterwards warped into the
bottom of the bay, to ensure all safety