820 
A SINGULAR WORM. 
These specimens generally consisted of mud and sand, 
dead shells, and small stones, the former often containing 
a singular worm, incrusted in a brittle shell resembling in 
form the figure 8, and which, upon being broken out of 
said shell, twisted about the deck in a most lively man- 
ner. They retained life in the atmosphere several minutes 
after being thus exposed, — longer than one would have 
imagined, when it is recollected that they had previously 
existed under several hundred fathoms of water. 
Many persons have an idea that in the high latitudes 
of Kamtschatka and Siberia even the summers are cold: 
our thermometers during the passage gave us an ave- 
rage temperature of 50 degrees, while we subsequently 
found it uncomfortably warm. And this was in lat. 
60° N. We found the weather, as a general thing, very 
changeable, — sometimes disagreeably cool, and then 
again quite warm. 
On the 26th, having run some tw'o hundred miles to 
the northward, we came to the first high land yet seen ; 
and here our soundings began to lose their beautiful 
regularity, and the coast, taking a bend to the eastward, 
caused us to change our course to N. by E. Before 
doing this, however, we came to anchor, loM^ered a boat, 
and placed her at the disposal of the master, to enable 
him to land on the beach and fix the position of this 
point by astronomical observation. A number of tlie 
mess, curious to feel the soil of “despotic Russia” under 
their feet, or hoping to shoot an eatable animal of some 
sort, took passage with him, while we, the remainder, 
amused oui'selves by fishing. 
A number of fine flounders, and one immoise crab, re- 
