134) FROM CONCEPTION BAY 



where Davis' Land is supposed to lie, on which 

 account I steered directly westward. For several 

 days we had a steady S. E. wind, which blew very 

 fresh; on which account the current drove us 

 daily from eighteen to twenty miles to the north. 

 On the 20th, as we had already reached longitude 

 95° 35\ I gave up all further looking for Davis* 

 Land, and directed my course rather more to the 

 south, in the hopes of being more fortunate in 

 latitude 26° 30' south, in finding Wareham's rocks. 

 We could depend on the certainty of our longitude, 

 as it had been for several days calculated accord- 

 ing to the distances of the sun and moon, and 

 agreed with the longitude by the chronometers 

 within a few minutes. It was here we threw a 

 well-corked bottle into the sea, into which a paper 

 was put, with the latitude and longitude of the 

 ship, the date of the year and month, and the 

 intelligence that the Rurick had looked here in 

 vain for Davis' Land, On the 24th, at five o'clock 

 in the afternoon, in latitude 26° 29' south, longi- 

 tude 100° 27' we passed the place where Wareham's 

 rocks are marked on Arrowsmith's chart. Tropical 

 birds and fishes we saw here in numbers ; the 

 horizon was clear, but the sailor who sat constantly 

 at the mast-head, declared that he could perceive 

 no rocks. In the evening, during the finest wea- 

 ther, we had bright lightning, which continued for 

 several hours, and sometimes illuminated the whole 

 horizon. With a star-light sky, and fiesh east wind. 



