324 VOYAGE TO THE 



Chap. we were w ithin a hundred miles of the coast of 

 ^^ Kamschatka that we saw the lumme, dovekie, rotge, 

 S and other alca, and the shag. The tropic birds ac- 

 companied us as far as 36° N. 



On the 18th and 19th, in latitude 35° N., longi- 

 tude 194° 30' W., we made some experiments on 

 the temperature of the sea at intermediate depths, 

 as low as 760 fathoms, where it was found to be 

 twenty-eight degrees colder than at the surface ; two 

 days afterwards another series was obtained, by 

 which it appeared that the temperature at 180 fa- 

 thoms was as cold as that at 500 fathoms on the for- 

 mer occasion, and it was twenty degrees colder at 

 380 fathoms on this, than it was at 760 fathoms on 

 the other. Between these experiments we entered 

 a thick fog, which continued until we were close off 

 the Kamschatka coast ; and we also experienced a 

 change of current, both of which no doubt contri- 

 buted towards the change of temperature of the sea, 

 which was much greater than could have been pro- 

 duced by the alteration in the situation of the ship : 

 the fog by obstructing the radiation of heat, and the 

 current by bringing a colder medium from higher la- 

 titudes. About this period we began to see drift 

 wood, some of which passed us almost daily. The 

 sea was occasionally strewed with moluscous animals, 

 principally beroes and nereis, among which on the 

 19th were a great many small crabs of a curious spe- 

 cies. Whether it was that these animals preferred 

 the foggy weather, or that we more narrowly scruti- 

 nized the small space of water around us to which 

 our view was limited, I cannot say, but it appeared 

 to us that they were much more numerous while the 

 fog; lasted than before or afterwards. 



