Narrative of the surveying voyages of his majesty's ships Adventure and Beagle (vol.1): between the years 1826 and 1836 : describing their examination of the southern shores of South America, and the Beagles's circumnavigation of the globe

56 ADMIRALTY SOUND. Feb 1827. their dogs, and all the furniture. Seeing us proceed to the southward, with the apparent intention of sailing down the inlet, they motioned to us to go to the north, repeatedly calling- out ' Sherroo, sherroo,' and pointing to the northward ; which we thought intimated that there was no passage in the direction we were taking. At noon, I landed to observe the latitude, and take bearings down the Sound to the S.E., at the bottom of which was a hill, standing by itself, as it were, in mid-channel. The view certainly excited hopes of its being a channel ; and as we had begun to calculate upon reaching Nassau Bay in a few days, we named this hill. Mount Hope. The point on which we landed was at the foot of a hi^h snow-capped hill, called by us Mount Seymour ; whence, had not the Indians been near, I should have taken bearings. We sailed south-eastward, close to the south shore, until the evening; when from the summit of some hills, about three hundred feet above the sea, we had a view down the Sound, which almost convinced us it would prove to be a channel. The rock at this place differed from any we had seen in the Strait. The mountains are high, and evidently of clay-slate ; but the point, near which we anchored, is a mass of hard, and very quartzose sand-stone, much resembling the old red sand- stone formation of Europe, and precisely like the rock of Goul- burn Island, on the north coast of New Holland.* The following morning (23d), we proceeded towards Mount Hope, while running down to which some squalls passed over, clouding the south shore, and as we passed Parry Harbour it bore so much the appearance of a channel, that we stood into it ; but the clouds clearing away soon exposed the bottom to our view, where there seemed to be two arms or inlets. In the south-eastern arm, the shores were covered with thick ice (like the bottom of Ainsworth Harbour, to the west of Parry Harbour, where an immense glacier slopes down to the water's edge). The south-west arm appeared to be well sheltered, and if it affords a moderate depth of water, would be an excellent harbour. • King's ' Australia,' vol. i. p. 70 ; also vol. ii. pp. 573, 582, and 613.