582 



METEOROLOGICAL JOURNAL. 



is performed by certain women of the tribe whose peculiar office 

 it is to attend to these rites. 



In the year 1828, from the commencement of January to the 

 middle of August, the Adventure (the ship I commanded) was at 

 anchor at Port Famine, in the Strait of Magalhaens, in latitude 

 53° 38 J' south, and longitude 70° 54' west of Greenwich ; and 

 during the whole of that time a careful meteorological journal 

 was kept. The temperature was registered from a very good ther- 

 mometer of Fahrenheit's scale, suspended within a copper cylin- 

 drical case of nine inches diameter, and perforated above and 

 below with holes, to admit a free current of air. The cylinder was 

 fixed to the roof of a shed, thatched with dried leaves to shelter it 

 from the sun, while the sides were open. The barometer (a moun- 

 tain barometer made by Newman, with an iron cylinder) was 

 hung up in the observatory, five feet above the high-water mark, 

 and both instruments were examined carefully and regularly at the 

 following hours, namely : six and nine o'clock in the morning, at 

 noon, and at three and six o'clock in the evening. The state of 

 the atmosphere was observed daily, by Daniel's hygrometer, at 

 three o'clock in the afternoon. The maximum and minimum tem- 

 peratures were also observed twice in twenty-four hours, from a 

 Six's thermometer, namely : at nine o'clock in the morning, and 

 at nine in the evening. From this journal the following abstract 

 has been drawn up : — 



