2-981-979 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Possession Island (one of the Crozet Group), Southern Indian Ocean, where the [New Zealand emigrant-ship] Strathmore was wrecked, 1876. View from a sketch '...by Captain William Ashby...[The islands] are remote from any other land, and quite uninhabited...At certain seasons of the year fog and ice are met with in this neighbourhood, which materially increases the dangers of an Australian passage...Possession Island, the largest of the group, is about twelve miles in circumference, and consists of volcanic rocks, covered with scanty vegetation...The Crozet Isles were discovered by Marion du Fresne, in command of a French expedition, so long ago as January, 1772; but, that unfortunate commander being shortly afterwards massacred in New Zealand, nothing was known of their discovery until three years afterwards'. From "Illustrated London News", 1876.