Like that of Terra del Fuego, the extremity of Van Diemen's land presents a rugged and determined front to the icy regions of the south pole; and, like it, seems once to have extended further south than it does at present. To a very unusual elevation is added an irregularity of form, that justly entitles it to rank among the foremost of the grand and wildly magnificent scenes of nature. It abounds with peaks and ridges, gaps and fissures, that not only disdain the smallest uniformity of figure, but are ever changing shape, as the point of view shifts. Beneath this strange confusion, the western part of this waving coast-line observes a regularity equally remarkable as the wild disorder which prevails above. Lofty ridges of mountain, bounded by tremendous cliffs, project from two to four miles into the sea, at nearly equal distances from each other, with a breadth varying from two miles to two and a half. The bights or bays lying between them are backed by sandy beaches. These vast buttresses appear to be the southern extremities of the mountains of Van Diemen's land; which, it can hardly be doubted, have once projected into the sea far beyond their present abrupt termination, and have been united with the now detached land, De Witt's Isles. If a corresponding height of similar strata was observable on the islands and on the main, it would amount to a proof that they were originally connected; but this proof was wanting. The same kind of strata appeared in both; but, as far as could be determined in passing hastily by, the necessary correspondence seemed to be deficient. They did not land upon either the islands or the main; but two kinds of rock, one with strata and the other without, were plainly discernible. That without strata formed by far the largest part; it appeared whitish and shining, was certainly a quartz, and probably a granite. The layers of the rock with strata were of various dark colours, and perfectly distinct. It was evident, that land so much exposed to the violence of extensive oceans must have undergone some very material changes, by the incessant attrition of their vast waves. Two of the isles, either from this or a more sudden cause, have so far deviated from their centre, that their parallel strata form angles of between sixteens and eighteen degrees in one instance, and in another between twenty-five and thirty degrees, with the horizontal line. But it is difficult to explain, by the action of water, how a large block of the white stone without strata is caused to overhang an almost perpendicular corner of one of the islands, which beneath that block consists of the dark coloured stone lying in strata.