inged, some with red, others with yellow. Small
portions of calcareous spar lie scattered about the surface of the rocky
ground; strata of which are deposited irregularly in fissures formed in
the body of the rocks themselves.

Leaving Twofold Bay upon a favourable shift of wind, the sloop proceeded
to the southward, and on the 17th made a small cluster of islands, in
latitude 38 degrees 16 minutes, which now bears the name of Kent's Group
(a compliment to the commander of his Majesty's ship _Supply_).
These are six or seven in number, and of various sizes. Their height is
very considerable, and as irregular in figure as can well be imagined in
land whose hummocks are no one of them more lofty than another. This
small group appears to be formed of granite, which is imperfectly
concealed by long straggling dwarfish brush, and some few still more
diminutive trees, and seems cursed with a sterility that might safely bid
defiance to Chinese industry itself. Nature is either working very slowly
with those islands, or has altogether ceased to work upon them, since a
more wild deserted place is not easily to be met with. Even the birds
seemed not to frequent them in their usual numbers. There was, in short,
nothing that could tempt our explorers to land.

Having passed Kent's Group standing to the southward, the next morning
Furneaux's Islands were in sight, and on the following day they anchored
at Preservation Island, which is one of them. These islands, from what
was seen of them during this run along their shore, and what had been
seen of them before by Mr. Bass, appear to consist of two kinds,
perfectly dissimilar in figure, and most probably of very unequal ages,
but alike in the materials of which they are formed. Both kinds are of
granite; but the one is low, and rather level, with a soil of sand
covered with low brush and tufted grass: the other is remarkably high,
bold, and rocky, and cut into a variety of singular peaks and knobs. Some
little vegetable soil lies upon these, and the vegetation is large; trees
even of a tolerable size are produced in some places. There are attached
to some parts of these high islands slips of low sandy land, of a similar
height with the lower islands, and probably coeval with them.

Preservation Island, which takes its respectable name from having
preserved the crew of the ship _Sydney Cove_, arranges itself in the
humble class of islands, and is of a very moderate height. A surface