*77*.' September.
Sunday 27.
October.
Sunday 4.
A VO Y A GE ROUND THE WORLD.
feamen call fallee, and Portuguefe men of war, (medufa velella
& holothuria phyfalis) likewife appeared about our veffel in
great abundance.
On the 27 th we tried the direction of the currents,
and the temperature of the fea again, with nearly the
fame-refult as before. The thermometer, which in open
air flood at 7 2 4 deg. and under the furface of the fea
at 7 o deg. after being let down 8 o fathom, funk to 6 8
deg. It continued 15 min. under water, and was hauled
up in 7 min. We likewife took up a new fpecies of the
blubber {medufa.) For two days paft, we had obferved a bird,
which we were this day enabled to examine, when wc
knew it to be the common fhear-water {procellaria puffinus.)
Having now reached the latitude of twenty-five degrees-
fouth, we found the wind gradually coming round from
E. by S. to E, by N. and toN. E. which enabled us to fleer
to the fouth-eaftward. Our bodies, which the heat o f
the torrid zone had in a great degree relaxed, now began
to feel' a confiderable alteration in the climate, and though
the thermometer was not above ten degrees different from
what it ufed to be near the line, yet I contracted a violent
cold, attended with the tooth-ach, fwelled gums, and;
cheeks.
Oii the fourth of Oftober, we obferved great numbers;
of the common little petrel, of a footy brown, with white-
rumps (procellaria pelagicajy and found the air cold and fharp*
The
Si
The next day the albatrofs, (diomedea exulans) and the pin- ofTo(ri
tadas (procellaria capenjis), made their firfl appearance.
On the 1 ith it was mild and almoft calm, after feveral Sunday u.
days of hazy and fqually weather, which had probably
fharpened the appetite of the fea birds, and efpecially the
pintadas ; for thefe laft eagerly fwallowed hooks baited
with pieces of pork or mutton, and no lefs than eight of
them were caught in a fhort time. In the evening we
obferved an eclipfe o f the moon, of which the end at a
medium happened at 6h. 7 8' 45" p. m. our latitude at
noon being 340 47' fouth.
The next day we tried the current and the temperature
of the fea a third time. We let down the thermometer
100 fathoms, where it continued 20 min. was hauled
up in 7 min. more, and then fhewed 78 deg. At the
furface it flood at 79 deg. and in the air at do deg. It
being calm, we employed ourfelves in the boat with
fhooting fea-fowl; among which were a fmall tern, a
fhear-water, a new fpecies of albatrofs, and a new petrel:
Several animals of the mollufca-tribe likewife came within
our reach, together with the helix janthina, a violet-coloured
fhell, remarkable for the extreme thinnefs of its texture,
which breaks with the leaft prefTure, and feems therefore
entirely calculated to keep the open fea, or at leaft to fhun
H 2 rocky