Page:A voyage round the world, in His Britannic Majesty's sloop, Resolution, commanded by Capt. James Cook, during the years 1772, 3, 4, and 5 (IA b30413849 0001).pdf/137

1772.
December.
Saturday 9.On the 9th, in the morning, we saw a large island of ice, surrounded with many small broken pieces, and the weather being moderate we brought to, hoisted out the boats, and sent them to take up as much of the small ice as they could. We piled up the lumps on the quarterdeck, packed them into casks, and after dinner melted them in the coppers, and obtained about thirty days water, in the course of this day, and in the latitude of 61° 36′ south. Two days afterwards we had another opportunity of supplying our sloops with ice, which our people performed with great alacrity, notwithstanding the excoriation of their hands, which the cold and the sharpness of the sea produced. A picturesque view of some large masses of ice, and of our ships and boats employed in watering from small ice, is inserted in Captain Cook's account of this voyage. Some white whales of a huge size, seemingly sixty feet long, were observed here, and many pinguins floated past us, standing upright on small bits of ice. The water we melted out of this ice was perfectly fresh, and had a purer taste than any which we had on board. If any fault could be found with it, it was that the fixed air was expelled from it, by which means almost every one who used it was affected with swellings in the glands of the throat. Water melted from snow or ice is known always to have this effect, and the constant use of it in mountainous countries produces those enormous wens(goîtres)