78 cook's second voyage march, 



and then, for a few minutes, till three in the after- 

 noon. Indeed the sky was, in general, so cloudy, 

 and the weather so thick and hazy, that we had very 

 little benefit of sun or moon ; very seldom seeing 

 the face of either the one or the other. And yet, 

 even under these circumstances, the weather for 

 some days past could not be called very cold. It, 

 however, had not the least pretension to be called 

 summer weather, according to my ideas of summer 

 in the northern hemisphere, as far as 60 of latitude ; 

 which is nearly as far north as I have been. 



In the evening we had three islands of ice in sight, 

 all of them large ; especially one, which was larger than 

 any we had yet seen. The side opposed to us seemed 

 to be a mile in extent ; if so, it could not be less 

 than three in circuit. As we passed it in the night, 

 a continual cracking was heard, occasioned, no doubt, 

 by pieces breaking from it. For, in the morning of 

 the 6th, the sea, for some distance round it, was 

 covered with large and small pieces ; and the island 

 itself did not appear so large as it had done the 

 evening before. It could not be less than 100 feet 

 high ; yet such was the impetuous force and height 

 of the waves, which were broken against it, by 

 meeting with such a sudden resistance, that they rose 

 considerably higher. In the evening, we were in 

 the latitude 59 58' south, longitude 118 39' east. 

 The 7th, the wind was variable in the N. E. and 

 S. E. quarters, attended with snow and sleet, till the 

 evening. Then the weather became fair, the sky 

 cleared up, and the night was remarkably pleasant, 

 as well as the morning of the next day ; which, for 

 the brightness of the sky, and serenity and mildness 

 of the weather, gave place to none we had seen since 

 we left the Cape of Good Hope. It was such as is 

 little known in this sea ; and, to make it still more 

 agreeable, we had not one island of ice in sight. 

 The mercury in the thermometer rose to 40. Mr. 

 Wales and the master made some observations of 





