Page:Journal of a Voyage to Greenland, in the Year 1821.djvu/222

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168
VOYAGE TO GREENLAND.

usual near this island, we were prevented from going on shore, which I anxiously desired, with the view of collecting subjects of natural history, specimens of mineralogy and of volcanic productions; and also to have some excellent shooting. Many birds indeed were seen from the ship, particularly the Alca Arctica, or Greenland parrot, one of which I succeeded in shooting, as numbers of them flew round the vessel, the representation of which is herewith given.

Beeringberg exhibited its towering head continually during the brightness of the day, until it gradually sank into the ocean when we had left the island upwards of eighty miles behind us. Captain Scoresby availed himself of the clearness of the weather to survey the south and west sides of the island, and took some observations highly important to navigation; for he discovered an error in the charts, the situation of Jan Mayne being laid down upwards of two degrees of longitude, and from ten to fifteen miles of latitude, from its real position. He also took the altitude of its stupen-