FERNANDO DE NORONHA, a group of islands in the South Atlantic, about 194 miles N.E. of Cape St Roque, South America, 3° 50' S. lat., 32’ 25' W. long. The largest of them is about 20 miles in circumference, its surface is rugged, and it contains a number of rocky hills from 500 to 700 feet hjgh, and a mountainous peak towering to the height of about 1000 feet. The island is covered with wood, but on account of the irregular occurrence of rain, it contains scarcely any other vegetation. It has several har-hours defended by forts, and serves as a place of banishment for criminals from Brazil. The next largest island of the group is about a mile in circumference, and the others are small barren rocks. The convict village numbers about 1000 inhabitants, and consists of a square formed by the governor’s residence, a chapel, the prison, workshop, and Government stores, and three or four streets radiating upwards, and composed of wattle-built huts. About 1000 additional convicts are employed in cultivating the plantations in different parts of the island. The island is.occupied by about 150 soldiers and 6 officers under a governor. ►Stores, convicts, and mails are carried by steamer twice a month to and from Pernambuco.

See “Visit to Fernando Noronha” by Alexander Rattray, M.D., R.N., in Journal of the Royal Geographical Society for 1872.