NORTH WEST COAST OF AMERICA. 9^ 



Towards noon on the 3d July the weather cleared ^ "^^ p* 

 up, and our obfervation gave 44° 4' North latitude, and « — — — ' 

 151° 12' longitude. j^iy." 



Monday j. 



Since the 29th we had daily feen feals, whales, and 

 porpoifcs, together with a great number of petrels, and 

 various other birds ; we frequently founded with a line of 

 150 fathoms, but found no bottom, neither was there 

 any appearance of land. I ftnick one of the feals that 

 were playing about the fhip, and got it on board ; at firft 

 fight I imagined it to be a fea-otter ; its fur was very 

 dole and line. 



For fome time paft the wind had kept to the North- 

 ward and Weftward, which greatly retarded our progrefs ; 

 but on the 7th, in 46° 11^ North latitude, and 147° 8' Friday 7. 

 longitude, it fhifted to the Southward, which enabled 

 us to fhape a courfe North Weft by North, for the en- 

 trance of Cook's River. We kept ftanding for that place 

 without meeting with any particular occurrence. The 

 weather in general was cloudy, with alternate fogs and 

 heavy rain. Vaft numbers of different kinds of birds, fuch as 

 divers, gulls, petrels, and albetroffes, were conftantly about 

 the fliip, and we frequently palTed pieces of wood and 

 patches of fea-weed, called by the failors fea-leek. 



The weather on the 14th being tolerably fine, I took" Friday 14, 

 the opportunity of cleaning the fiiip well, fore and aft j and 

 afterwards every part was aired with good fires ; a moft ne- 

 cefTary precaution, after the foggy, wet weather we fo 

 recently had experienced. 



In 



