»773*
in cleaning, caulking, and breaming the {hip, fetting up and
N o v e m b e r . repairing the rigging, and, in fhort, in fitting her for the
next fouthern cruize. A great party were on fhore to fill
our empty calks with frefh-water, to make provifion of
fuel, and to revife the (hip’s bifcuit, which was in a very
decayed condition. It had unfortunately been packed into
new, or what are called green calks, the ftaves of which
being damp, had communicated the moifture to the bread,
a confiderable part of which was perfetftly rotten, and all
the reft, more or lefs covered with mould. To prevent the
fatal cffedts of this corruption, all the bread was carried
afhore, the bad carefully felefted from that which was ftill
eatable, and this laft put into an oven and baked over again,
till it was thoroughly dried.
The weather during this time was as boifterous and in-
conftant, as that which had fo long kept us out of this
harbour. Scarce a day palled without heavy (quails of wind,
which hurried down with redoubled velocity from the
mountains, and ftrong Ihowers of rain, which retarded all
our occupations. The air was commonly cold and raw,
vegetation made How advances, and the birds were only
found in vallies (heltered from the chilling fouthern blaft.
This kind of weather in all likelihood prevails throughout
the winter, and likewife far into the midft of fummer,
without a much greater degree of cold in the former, or of
warmth in the latter feafon, Iflands far remote from any
continent,.
continent, or at leaft not fituated near a cold one, feem in
general to have an uniform temperature of air, owing perhaps
to the nature of the ocean which every where fur-
rounds them. It appears from the meteorological journals
kept at Port Egmont on the Falkland Iflands *, that the extremes
of the greateft cold, and the greateft heat obferved
there throughout the year, do not exceed thirty degrees on
Fahrenheit’s fcale. The latitude of that port is 5 1 ° 2s'
fouth ; and that of Ship Cove in Queen Charlotte’s Sound,
only 4 1 ° s . This confiderable difference of fite, will
naturally make the climate of New Zeeland infinitely
milder than that of Falkland’s Iflands, but cannot affedt
the general hypothefis concerning the temperature of all
iflands; and the immenfe height of the mountains in New
Zeeland, fome of which are covered with (now throughout
the year, doubtlefs contributes to refrigerate the air, fo as to
affimilate it to that of the Falkland’s Ides, which are not fo
high.
The inclemency o f the feafon did not prevent the natives
from rambling about in this fpacious found. Having been
entirely forfaken by them for three days together, a party
arrived near us on the 9th, in three canoes, one of which
was elegantly carved in fretwork on the ftern. They fold
* See the Journal of the Winds and Weather, and Degrees of Heat and Cold
by the thermometer at Falkland’s Ifland, from February 1766, to January ,,6 7 .
inferred in Mr. Dalrymple’s Colleflion of Voyages in the Southern Atlantic
Ucean.
S S S 2 US
^ No v e m b e r *