»7£** December.
T;uef<jay. 8.
quaver bird, frpm it«, haying, a, greyilh.-,brown colour.
Many birds of all thefe. different fpsci^ furroqndetl us,, on,
the 8th of December, tire wind, ftill continuing very high,
and the fea very turbulent. W,e now, likeyyife faw pyn-
guinsf ifpr the firff time, and fome bunches of ffea-weed^
of .the fpeqies, called the fea-bambpo (fuqiisbu^cmlis Lin,;. .
Thefe appearances greatly, favoured the hope of meeting
withland, as it had hitherto been, held uncontroverted that
weeds, efpecially rockweeds, (fu.ch as, thefe were) aritl.,
pinguins were never to be met with at a great diftapcefronx
fhores ; but experience, has fliewn that thefg prognoftics.
are not to be relied upon, and probably derive all their,
credit from Angle accidental proofs ,in their favour* fup«
ported by the name of, fome celebrated mariner. Future,
obfervatictns on the nature of, floating rock-weed^ apd;
drift-woqdj might perhaps lead to fome more determinatev
conclufians i , for as thefe weeds muff have been at firff
detached from, the rocks on which they grew, it is probable-
that from the degree of frefhnefs or. of putridity which,
* Thefe birds, which fmce, the time o n Sir John Narbomug-h, have ^
been repeatedly, mentioned by almoft every.navigator that haa.vifited the. Southern,
extremities o f America, are fo well, known.tq the Englilh,reader,^from the j®
counts of A n fo n ,B y ro n , Bougainville, Pemetty, &c. that it is fcarce necefliry,
to de'fcribe them. T h e y are i r f a manner amphibious creatures, and them wmgs-,
are unfit for. flying,, but (haped like ftrong fleihy membranes, wh.ch perform,
all the functions of fins. There are upwards o f ten different fpecies known to
the naturalifts at prefont.
they,
they have when found, the time they have been adrift,
and in fome rare inftances, the diftances from land, may
be conjectured ; but the direction and force of the winds
and waves, and other accidental circumftances, muff in
that cafe be carefully taken into confederation.
The wind abated during night, fo that we fet our
courfes on the 9 th in the morning. The thermometer at
eight o’clock was however fallen to 35 °, and only rofe
one degree at noon, being then in 4 9 0 4s' of fouth latitude.
Towards night it grew colder again, and at half an
hour paft ten, we found the thermometer on deck very
near 320, and the edges of the fcuttled-calk, filled with
frefli water, were freezing. This great cold preceded the
fight of ice floating in the fea, which we fell in with on
the next morning. The firff we faw, was a lump of con-
fiderable fize, fo clofe to us, that we were obliged to bear
away from i t ; another of the fame magnitude a little more
a-head, and a large mafs about two leagues on the weather-
bow, which had the appearance of a white head-land, or a
chalk-cliff.
In the afternoon we palled another large cubical mafs
about 2000 feet long, 400 feet broad, and at leaft as high
again as our main-top-gallant-maft head, or 200 feet high.
According to the experiments of Boyle and Mairan *, the
* See Mairan’ s DifTertation fur la Glace, Paris, 1749, p, 261.
>77**
December«
Wednefday 9,
Thurfday ic4
volume