68 
TRANSACTIONS IN THE 
the midst of the Mee-a-tau Islands, and the sixth in the Gulf of 
Pe-tchee-lee. 
From these experiments it appears that the sea diminishes in tem- 
perature in proportion to its depth, and that the difference of the 
temperature of the surface, and any given depth within a certain 
range, is greater at sea than near the land, and that the difference of 
the temperature at the surface and bottom is greatest when that of 
the air and surface is least. 
But these experiments are not in themselves sufficiently numerous 
to warrant positive results to be drawn from them. In reference to 
those of others they are more important, and in the Appendix * I have 
compared them with many which have been made by different 
observers on the temperature of the sea at different depths. 
The Lyra not being able to communicate with the Alceste by 
signal in consequence of the haziness of the weather, changed her 
birth and anchored close to us during the night of the twenty-ninth. 
On the following morning, Captain Hall came on board the Alceste, 
with information that he had been visited the evening before by two 
Mandarins, who stated that the Viceroy of Pe-tchee-lee might be daily 
expected at the mouth of the Pei-ho to receive the Embassy. 
On the first of August, the same Mandarins waited on His Excel- 
lency with intelligence of this Viceroy’s disgrace, and of another 
having been appointed to succeed him. They added that a mes- 
senger had been despatched to the latter with the news of our arrival, 
and that three officers of high rank appointed to take charge of the 
Embassy were already at Ta-koo, and they requested that two of the 
gentlemen of the Embassy might be sent to compliment them on 
their arrival. 
The bearers of this information were of low rank ; one wore a 
crystal, one an ivory, and two of them gold buttons. They were tall, 
robust, and stately men, of very impudent deportment, endeavour- 
ing to pass themselves off for Tci-Gin, (great men :) a title only given 
to those of their countrymen who are much their superiors in rank. 
See Appendix, F. 
