In the year 1874 the steamship Faraday whilst engaged in grappling for the broken telegraph cable, caught the strong claws of the grapple in a rock, which resisted with the strain of about 27.5 tons, to which any but a rope of marvellously perfect manufacture would have yielded. As it was, the rock gave way, and a lump of black basalt came up weighing 21 lbs. This mass shewed signs of having been torn off. The fragment, and the section made from it for the microscope which accompanies this memorandum, were submitted to Mr. J. Clifton Ward, who has kindly examined the specimen, and drawn up the report enclosed herewith.

I cannot find in any charts indications of the habitual voyage of icebergs so far eastwards in the same latitude as the spot in question, and I have consulted Dr. John Rae as to the question of the rock being from an ice-borne mass. He says in reply, that he is not aware of icebergs having been seen about that spot, but that such an occurrence is not impossible. He thinks it more likely that, as I had suggested, the fragment was wrenched off some submarine peak or summit or ridge.