1772.
September.
seamen call sallee, and Portuguese men of war, (medusa velella & holothuria physalis) likewise appeared about our vessel in great abundance.
Sunday 27.On the 27th we tried the direction of the currents, and the temperature of the sea again, with nearly the same result as before. The thermometer, which in open air stood at 72½ deg. and under the surface of the sea at 70 deg. after being let down 80 fathom, sunk to 68 deg. It continued 15 min. under water, and was hauled up in 7 min. We likewise took up a new species of the blubber (medusa.) For two days past, we had observed a bird, which we were this day enabled to examine, when we knew it to be the common shear-water (procellaria puffinus.) Having now reached the latitude of twenty-five degrees south, we found the wind gradually coming round from E. by S. to E. by N. and to N.E. which enabled us to steer to the south-eastward. Our bodies, which the heat of the torrid zone had in a great degree relaxed, now began to feel a considerable alteration in the climate, and though the thermometer was not above ten degrees different from what it used to be near the line, yet I contracted a violent cold, attended with the tooth-ach, swelled gums, and cheeks.
October.
Sunday 4.On the fourth of October, we observed great numbers of the common little petrel, of a sooty brown, with white rumps (procellaria pelagica), and found the air cold and sharp.The
