2-982-113 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Sketches from H.M.S. Challenger, by Mr. J. J. Wild: Peak of Fernando Noronha, 1876. 'The island of Fernando Noronha, in the Atlantic, three or four degrees south of the Equator, was visited by the Challenger in the early part of the voyage. It is now used as a penal settlement by the Brazilian Government; but the governor refused permission to explore it. Its peak, shown in the sketch, forms a gigantic obelisk about 1000 ft. high, which, owing to its peculiar shape - one side overhanging its base - serves as a conspicuous landmark to the mariner. Mr. Darwin, who visited the island in 1832, supposes it to have been formed by the injection of melted rock into yielding strata, which, having disappeared through the denuding action of time, have left the rock standing in its present solitary grandeur'. From "Illustrated London News", 1876.