like that
universal sort which were found at Kerguelen's Land. The rocky shores
are a continued mass of this; and the little coves, in the Sound, have
beaches composed of fragments of it, with a few other pebbles. All
these coves are furnished with a great quantity of fallen wood lying
in them, which is carried in by the tide; and with rills of fresh
water, sufficient for the use of a ship, which seem to be supplied
entirely from the rains, and fogs that hover about the tops of the
hills. For few springs can be expected in so rocky a country, and the
fresh water found farther up the Sound, most probably arose from the
melting of the snow; there being no room to suspect, that any large
river falls into the Sound, either from strangers coming down it, or
from any other circumstance. The water of these rills is perfectly
clear, and dissolves soap easily.

The weather, during our stay, corresponded pretty nearly with that
which we had experienced off the coast. That is, when the wind was any
where between N. and W., the weather was fine and clear; but if to
the southward of W., hazy with rain. The climate, as far as we had any
experience of it, is infinitely milder than that on the east coast
of America, under the same parallel of latitude. The mercury in the
thermometer never, even in the night, fell lower than 42 deg., and
very often, in the day, it rose to 60 deg.. No such thing as frost was
perceived in any of the low ground; on the contrary, vegetation had
made a considerable progress, for I met with grass that was already
above a foot long.

The trees which chiefly compose the woods, are the Canadian pine,
white cypress, _cypressus thyoides_, the wild pine, with two or
three other sorts of pine less common. The two first make up almost
two-thirds of the whole; and, at a distance, might be mistaken for the
same tree, as they both run up into pointed spire-like tops, but
they are easily distinguished on coming nearer from their colour, the
cypress being of a much paler green, or shade, than the other. The
trees, in general, grow with great vigour, and are all of a large
size.

There is but little variety of other vegetable productions, though,
doubtless, several had not yet sprung up at the early season when we
visited the place, and many more might be hid from the narrow sphere
of our researches. About the rocks, and verge of the woods, we found
strawberry-plants, some raspberry, currant, and gooseberry bushes,
w