The entire islet is covered with metallic volcanic debris which has turned purplish red (bordeaux), purple, green, brass (yellowish) and iron grey after oxidation.

[9] In his 1868 book Rambles of a Naturalist on the Shores and Waters of the China Sea, Cuthbert Collingwood (naturalist) briefly described Huaping Islet, called Pinnacle Island or Chair-bearers:[10] Immediately north of Ke-lung we met with a group of three islands-Pinnacle, Craig, and Agincourt-little, if ever, visited, and of which no description has been given.

The first of these, Pinnacle Island, is of a remarkable form and has received the native name of the Chair-bearers, from the fact of the outline faintly resembling a Chinese sedan borne between two men.

It is a perfectly bare craggy rock, with a tall pinnacle at either end, against which the waves dash furiously, sending the spray a hundred feet high.

The rock was whitened with the exrements of sea-birds, and I had no opportunity of a close inspection.In his 1895 book From Far Formosa, George Leslie Mackay briefly described Huaping Islet (literally, 'flower pot islet'), also known as Pinnacle Island:[11] Away to the northeast of Formosa, more than a hundred miles from Kelung, are three islands, called Pinnacle, Craig, and Agincourt.