130 ELIZABETH CARY AGASSIZ 
see what he could find. Among other things he found 
a very rare shell, and twospecimens, the young and the 
old, one would say, from the relative size, and only 
known heretofore from the Straits of Magellan where 
we had had a faint hope he might find it, though even 
there it’s not easy. Then some beautiful sea-urchins 
and many very young ones, from the size of a pea, 
and even smaller, upwards, all of which he preserved 
with great care for Alex, as that is a specialty with 
him, and the young are not easy to have. Altogether 
this dredging was more interesting even than the 
previous one. 
On this same day we saw many albatross. It is a 
beautiful bird on the water, sitting so gracefully with 
the body half sunk in the wave, the large head with 
soft glittering white plumage resting above the surface; 
it looks as much at home and as secure as any bird in 
its nest on land; when it rises it scuds along on the 
water for a little way then soars away on wide spread 
wings, as easy in its motion as in its rest. They say that 
some of them measure twelve feet from tip to tip of 
the wings; these did not look to me so large. 
Of Port San Antonio, March 6 
Here we are in a land-locked harbor where the ship 
lies as if she were at the Charlestown wharf, so quiet 
and motionless. We anchored about five o’clock yes- 
terday afternoon, and immediately after dinner all 
hands went on shore. The boat with Agassiz, the fish- 
ing party and the seine went first; Mrs. Johnson and 
I followed a little later with the Captain. We landed 
