

64 cook's second voyage 



JAN. 



Having clear weather at intervals, I spread the 

 ships a-breast four miles from each other, in order 

 the better to discover any thing that might lie 

 in our way. We continued to sail in this man- 

 ner till six o'clock in the evening, when hazy 

 weather, and snow showers, made it necessary for 

 us to join. 



We kept our course to the N. E. till eight o'clock 

 in the morning of the 25th, when the wind having 

 veered round to N. E. by E. by the west and north, 

 we tacked, and stood to N. W. The wind was fresh, 

 and yet we made but little way against a high 

 northerly sea. We now began to see some of that 

 sort of peterels so well known to sailors by the name 

 of sheerwaters, latitude 58 10', longitude 50 54' 

 east. In the afternoon the wind veered to the 

 southward of east, and at eight o'clock in the 

 evening, it increased to a storm, attended with thick 

 hazy weather, sleet and snow. 



During night we went under our fore-sail and 

 main-top-sail close-reefed ; at day light the next 

 morning, added to them the fore and mizzen 

 top-sails. At four o'clock it fell calm ; but a pro- 

 digious high sea from the N. E. and a complication 

 of the worst of weather, viz. snow, sleet, and rain, 

 continued, together with the calm, till nine o'clock 

 in the evening. Then the weather cleared up, 

 and we got a breeze at S. E. by S. With this we 

 steered N. by E. till eight o'clock the next morning, 

 being the 27th, when I spread the ships and steered 

 N. N. E. all sails set, having a fresh breeze at S. by W. 

 and clear weather. 



At noon we were, by observation, in the latitude 

 of 56 28' south, and about three o'clock in the 

 afternoon, the sun and moon appearing at intervals, 

 their distances were observed by the following 

 persons, and the longitude resulting therefrom 

 was 



