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

Dec. 1826. cape fairweather — chalk. 7 of us. The wind veering to S.S.W., we made about a west course. At day-light the land was in sight, terminating in a point to the S.W., so exactly like the description of Cape Virgins and the view of it in Anson''s voyage, that without considering our place on the chart, or calculating the previous twenty-four hours'" run, it was taken for the Cape itself, and, no one suspecting a mistake, thought of verifying the ship''s position. The point, however, proved to be Cape Fairweather. It was not a little singular, that the same mistake should have been made on board the Beagle, where the error was not dis- covered for three days.* From the appearance of the weather I was anxious to approach the land in order to anchor, as there seemed to be every likelihood of a gale; and we were not deceived, for at three o'clock, being within seven miles of the Cape, a strong wind sprung up from the S. W., and the anchor was dropped. Towards evening it blew so hard, that both ships dragged their anchors for a considerable distance. On the charts of this part of the coast the shore is described to be formed of " chalk hills, like the coast of Kent." To geologists, therefore, especially, as they were not disposed to believe that such was the fact, this was a question of some interest. From our anchorage the appearance of the land favoured our belief of the existence of chalk. The outline was very level and steep ; precipitous cliffs of whitish colour, strati- fied horizontally, with their upper part occasionally worn into hollows, strongly resembled the chalk cliffs of the English coasts. The gale prevented our landing for three days, when (19th) a few minutes sufficed to discover that the cliffs were composed • A similar error was made by one of the ships of the fleet under Loyasa in the year 1525. The Nodales also, in their description of the coast, mention the similarity of appearance in the two capes, Virgins and Fairweather. " Y venido de mar en fuera a buscar la tierra facilmente podian hacer de Rio de Gallegos el Cabo de Virgenes," (and in making the land Cape Virgins may easily be mistaken for the river Gallegos). — Viage de los Nodales, p, 53.