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

Feb. 1827. ADMIKALTV SOUND, 57 After satisfying ourselves that there was no channel here, we bore up on our original course ; but, before long, found our- selves within two miles of the bottom of the Sound ; which is shallow, and appears to receive two rivers. The great quantity of ice water, which mingles here with the sea, changed its colour to so pale a blue, that we thought ourselves in fresh water. Mount Hope proved to be an isolated mass of hills, lying like the rest N.W. and S.E., having low land to the southward, over which nothing was visible except one hill, thirty or forty miles distant, covered with snow, to which the rays of the sun gave the appearance of a sheet of gold. Finding ourselves embayed, we hastened out of the scrape, and, after beating for some hours, anchored in Parry Harbour. Our entrance into a little cove in Parry Harbour disturbed a quantity of ducks, steamers, shags, and geese. Their numbers showed that Indians had not lately visited it. Next day we reached Ainsworth Harbour, which is of the same character as Parry Harbour, and affords perfect security for small vessels : by dint of sweeping, we reached a secure anchorage in a cove at the south-east corner. The bottom of the port is formed, as I before said, by an immense glacier, from which, during the night, large masses broke oft' and fell into the sea with a loud crash,* thus explain- ing: the nocturnal noises we had often heard at Port Famine, and which at the time were thought to arise from the eruption of volcanoes. Such were also, probably, the sounds heard by the Spanish officers during their exploration of the Straits, whilst in the port of Santa Monica, where they had taken refuge from a violent gale of wind.-}- • At high tide the sea-water undermines, hy thawing, large masses of ice, which, when the tide falls, want support, and, consequently, break ofiF, bringing after them huge fragments of the glacier, and falling into the still basin with a noise like thunder. t " En los dias 24, y 25, oimos un ruido sordo, y de corta duracion, que, por el pronto, nos pareci6 trueno ; pero habiendo i-eflexionado, nos inelinamos a creer que fue efecto de alguna explosion subterranea, formado