ASCENSION ISLAND, is an island in the Atlantic, which was discovered in the year 1501 by the Portu guese navigator J. de Nova Galego. It was seen by Albuquerque in his voyage to India in 1503, and was visited by captain Cooke in 1775. It is about ten miles in length from south-east to north-west, and about five or six broad ; and affords strong marks of a volcanic origin. The beach on which Mr Forster landed con sisted of a dry and snowy white shell sand, which offend ed the eye by the rays of the sun which it reflected.
After passing through heaps of black cavernous stone like the lava of Vesuvius, they ascended a perpendicu lar height of about fourteen yards, and reached a level plain about seven miles in circuit. Large insulated and conical hills stood at the corners of the plain, and be tween them were a number of tumuli composed of lava, resembling what they saw on the shore. The soil be tween these tumuli was a firm black earth, and in those parts of the plain which were not diversified by these heaps of lava, the soil was a loose red earth, which was driven about by the wind. The materials of the conical hills were a red and soft lava, which crumbled into earth.
This level plain was considered by Mr Forster as the crater of an ancient volcano, which had been filled up with the rubbish which had been carried in the rainy season by the streams which run from the interior mountain. After having climbeg over with conside rable difficulty an immense current of lava, intersect ed by ravines about twenty feet deep, they came to the foot of the Green Mountain, a large and broad white mountain, with a little verdure springing from the lava which surrounded it. The Green Mountain is separated into several parts, by various clefts, which run together towards the centre, and form one broad mass of great elevation. The mountain seemed to be composed of a gritty tophaceous limestone, and numerous goats fed upon a scanty supply of grass peculiar to the island. The turtles here are so large and abundant, that the East India and other ships often touch at the island for the purpose of procuring them. W• Long. 13° 45", S. Lat. 7° 56' 30". See Cooke's Voyages, and Modern Univers. List. vol. xi. p. 458. (a-)