SOUTHERN CRUISE. 139 



On the 6th March the wind shifted to the northward, with snow. 

 Great numbers of penguins, Cape pigeons, and whales, were around 

 the vessel. 



The 7th commenced with rain and snow. The wind was light and 

 from the westward; it gradually hauled to the southwestward and 

 blew fresh. While making all way to the northward, the fog lifted, 

 and high land was reported within a short distance of us. A few 

 moments more, and we should have been wrecked. This proved to be 

 Elephant Island. We found from its position that we had been set 

 upw T ards of fifty miles to the eastward, in the last four days, by the 

 current. We passed to leeward of it. The sea was too high to 

 attempt a landing. In the afternoon it cleared, and from our obser- 

 vations we found Cape Belsham, its eastern point, well placed. We 

 passed between it and Cornwallis Island. The Seal Rocks were also 

 seen and observed upon. 



Elephant Island is high and of volcanic appearance ; its valleys 

 were filled with ice and snow. We tried the deep-sea temperature. 

 At the surface it was found to be 36°, whilst at three hundred fathoms 

 it was 33°. 



We now stood to the northward, and until the 14th had continued 

 bad weather, accompanied with heavy seas. On this day we made 

 the land. 



On the 16th we were off the Straits of Le Maire, where I again 

 tried the deep-sea temperature, with a wire sounding-line, which parted 

 at three hundred and forty fathoms, and we lost the apparatus. I then 

 made a second experiment, with a line of rope four hundred fathoms 

 in length. The temperature of the surface was 44°, of the water 

 below, 37°. This was about sixty miles to the eastward of the place 

 where I had sounded before, on the 15th February, when passing 

 around Cape Horn in the Vincennes. 



March 17th, we had light winds from the eastward, and a smooth 

 sea, with delightful weather. There was, however, a heavy bank of 

 cumuli to the southwestward, and after a few hours' calm, the wind 

 came from that quarter, and began to blow fresh, accompanied with 

 heavy squalls. We did not succeed that night in reaching New 

 Island, where it was my intention to have anchored and rode out the 

 gale. We in consequence found ourselves the next morning thirty 

 miles to the eastward of our position on the previous evening, having 

 drifted at the rate of three miles an hour. From appearances, I 

 inferred that the gale had set in for several days ; I therefore deter- 

 mined to make for Good Success Bay, and await the breaking up oi 



