14th July (Sunday).
After reading prayers, Messrs. Brown, Harding, and myself walked to the
summit of the range of black volcanic hills that skirted the western bank
of the river at about a mile distant. These hills consist of ragged
scoria, elevated 300 to 400 feet above the plain, and are nearly
destitute of vegetation. At their summits are deep fissures, the heat of
the eruptive rocks from beneath having been sufficient to convert the
trap and sandstone rocks into a deep bluish-grey scoria, having a
specific gravity of nearly four; but we did not observe any instance of
the actual overflow of lava, and consequently there was a want of the
fertilising properties in the soil resulting from it that usually
accompanies volcanic formations. A native dog had left a litter of pups
under a heap of stones not eighteen inches beneath our feet, but such was
the sharpness and ponderability of the fragments of rock that it fairly
baffled our attempts to unhouse them. A valuable round of bearings was
procured from this spot, Depuch Island being seen bearing north 14
degrees east, distant about twenty-eight miles.