1841.
eight miles by a current, the greater part of which I have no doubt occurred as we passed along the west side of the Chatham Islands, where we observed, in many places, strong ripples and whirls of tide.
Many patches of seaweed were passed during the day, and the albatross and several small kinds of petrel played about us in great numbers.
Dec. 2.It was a beautiful day, the wind fresh from the N. E.; and again we found the current had carried us twenty miles in a S. 4° W. direction. In the afternoon we passed a wicker basket and several small pieces of wood, from which we concluded that we were crossing the track of some vessel homeward bound from Tasmania.
Diverted from our proper course by the N. E. wind, we gradually approached the supposed locality of a small group of islands called the Nimrods, but as they have been searched for so often without success, I should have looked for them rather to the east or west of their presumed position, had the wind suited, and far from the tracks of other navigators; but my purpose was defeated by adverse circumstances of wind and weather, so that we could not get within two hundred miles of their assigned place.
Dec. 3.Several sperm whales were seen this morning, and during the night we had observed a great number of luminous patches, and some very large pyrosoma were taken in the towing net: a boat was lowered in the afternoon to try the current,