APR. 1770 WORT FOR SCURVY 259 



this mess. It totally banished that troublesome costiveness 

 which I believe most people are subject to when at sea. 

 Whether or no this is a more beneficial method of administer- 

 ing wort as a preventative than the common, must be left to 

 the faculty, especially that excellent surgeon Mr. M'Bride, 

 whose ingenious treatise on the sea-scurvy can never be 

 sufficiently commended. For my own part I should be 

 inclined to believe that the salubrious qualities of the wort 

 which arise from fermentation might in some degree at least 

 be communicated to the wheat when thoroughly saturated 

 with its particles, which would consequently acquire a virtue 

 similar to that of fresh vegetables, the greatest resisters of 

 sea-scurvy known. 



3rd. We got fast on to the westward, but the compass 

 showed that the hearts of our people hanging that way 

 caused a considerable north variation, which was sensibly 

 felt by our navigators, who called it a current, as they do 

 usually everything which makes their reckonings and 

 observations disagree. 



5th. The captain told me that he had during this whole 

 voyage observed that between the degrees of 40 and 37 

 south latitude the weather becomes suddenly milder in a 

 very great degree, not only in the temperature of the air, 

 but in the strength and frequency of gales of wind, which 

 increase very much in going towards 40, and decrease in 

 the same proportion as you approach 3*7. 



11th. Went out shooting and killed Diomedea exulans 

 and impavida : saw D. profuga; Procellaria melanopus, velox, 

 oceanica, vagdbunda, and longipes ; Nectris fuliginosa. Took 

 up with dipping - net Mimus volutator, Medusa pelagica, 

 Dagysa cornuta, Phyllodoce velella, and ffolothuria oUusata, 

 of which last an albatross that I had shot discharged a 

 large quantity, incredible as it may appear that an animal 

 should feed upon this blubber, whose innumerable stings 

 give a much more acute pain to a hand which touches them 

 than nettles. 



12th. I again went out in my small boat and shot much 

 the same birds as yesterday : took up also chiefly the same 



