Jan. 18.
and shells, with some pieces of coral and a crustaceous animal (nymphon gracile), common in the Arctic Seas, came up with the lead. The temperature at that depth was 34°.6; at one hundred and fifty fathoms, 33°.8; that of the surface being 30°, and of the air 31°; the specific gravity of water brought up from various intermediate depths was the same as at the surface, 1.0277, at a temperature of 35°. This experiment was repeated with exactly the same result, in consequence of the Terror, which was less than a mile distant from us, having found only one hundred and seventy-four fathoms on a sandy bottom, showing a very remarkable irregularity in the bed of the ocean at this part. At 5 p.m., when in lat. 73° 3′ S., we tacked and stood towards the land; at 8 we sounded in one hundred and ninety, and at midnight in one hundred and eighty fathoms, on a bottom of sand and broken shells, having at that time run twenty-four miles true W. by N. The land was again seen soon after 9 p.m. W.N.W. true, at one hundred and twenty miles' distance, the sky of course being beautifully clear in that direction: we considered Jan. 19.it a curious circumstance finding the water so shallow at so great a distance from such high land. Numbers of the young pintado were flying about, and one shot by Mr. McCormick fell on board; it was the first specimen of the kind we obtained.
At four o'clock in the morning, we had one hundred and seventy fathoms, at eight o'clock two hundred and ten fathoms, and at noon had increased the