CHARLES WILKES 
223 
Islands. However, incipient scurvy appeared amongst 
the ill-clad and over-crowded crew so the Porpoise also 
was headed for Orange Harbour, stopping only to make 
some deep-sea observations on the way. One of these 
experiments was made with a wire sounding-line, one 
of the earliest instances of such an arrangement being 
used, but it parted at 340 fathoms and the gear was 
lost. After some adventures amongst the Fuegian 
Islands, the Porpoise reentered Orange Harbour on 
March 30th, where she found the Sea Gull had arrived 
eight days before. Lieutenant Johnson had spent a 
week at Deception Island, and had searched for, but 
failed to find the minimum thermometer left there by 
Captain Foster in 1829.* 
The Peacock and Flying Fish left Orange Harbour 
on February 25, 1839, with orders to proceed south- 
westward to Cook's Ne Plus Ultra, the point where the 
great navigator reached his most southerly latitude in 
105° W., and then striking southward and eastward 
they were to steer to the south of Bellingshausen’s 
route, to pass southward of Peter I. Island and of Alex- 
ander I. Land, and so return to Orange Harbour. The 
achievement fell far short of the plan. The two vessels 
lost sight of each other in a gale the very day after 
they sailed, and the Peacock finding that it would waste 
too much time to beat up to the various rendezvous 
appointed for a meeting in case of separation, held 
on her course and met the first icebergs in 63° 30' S. 
in 8o° W. on March nth, and struggled through an 
ice-encumbered sea (reaching almost as far as 98° W. 
*The thermometer was found by a sealer, W. H. Smiley, in 
1842, and the minimum temperature in the 13 years that it had 
been exposed found to be — 5° F. 
