A VOYAGE TO [From the Cape. 
1801. island Amsterdam, the winds were never so strong as to reduce the 
Investigator to close-reefed top sails ; and on the other hand, the 
calms amounted to no more than seven hours in nineteen days. The 
average distance on the log board upon direct courses, for we had 
no foul winds, was a hundred and forty miles per day ; and the 
Investigator was not a frigate, but a collier-built ship, and deeply 
laden. In the following twelve days run, from Amsterdam to the 
south-west cape of New Holland, the same winds attended us ; and 
a hundred and fifty eight miles per day was the average distance, 
without lee way or calm. 
Thurs. 12. On the 12th, I took the opportunity of light winds to send 
down a bucket, fitted with valves to bring up water from a depth ; 
but having no thermometer of a proper size to go into the bucket, I 
could only immerse one after the water was brought up. In this 
imperfect way, the temperature at 150 fathoms depth was found, to 
be 63°,!, differing very little from that of the water at the surface, 
which was 63°, 8. In the air, the thermometer stood at 6g,6. The 
specific gravity of the water brought up was afterwards tried at 
King George's Sound, and proved, at the temperatare of 6g°, to be 
1,026, taking that of the crystal-glass bulb, with which the experi- 
ment was made, at 3,150 ; and the specific gravity of the surface 
water, taken up at the same time, was exactly the same. The lati- 
tude of our situation was 36 0 36' south, and longitude 38 0 23' east. 
The mean inclination of the dipping needle, placed upon the cabin 
table, was 58 0 4/ of the south end ; and the variation, by mean of 
azimuths on the preceding evening and amplitude this morning, 
taken on the binnacle when the ship's head was S. E. by E., mag- 
netic, was 31 0 47'; but the true variation, or such as would have 
been obtained with the head at north, or south, I consider to have 
been 29 0 22' west. 
Throughout the passage to the island Amsterdam, we were 
accompanied by some, or all of the oceanic birds usually found in 
these latitudes ; but not in the numbers I had been accustomed to 
