A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 17 eBook

Robert Kerr (writer)
This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 787 pages of information about A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 17.

A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 17 eBook

Robert Kerr (writer)
This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 787 pages of information about A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 17.

The latitude of the anchoring-place in Simon’s
  Bay, by observation 34 deg.20’S. 
The longitude 18 29 E.
Dip of the south end of the magnetic needle 46 47
Variation of the compass 22 16 W.

On the full and change days, it was high-water at 5^h 55^m apparent time; the tide rose and fell five feet five inches; at the neap tides, it rose four feet one inch.

From the observations taken by Mr Bayley and myself, on the 11th of this month, when the Cape of Good Hope bore due west, we found its latitude to be 34 deg. 23’ S., which is 4’ to the northward of its position, as determined by the Abbe de la Caille.

Having completed our victualling, and furnished ourselves with the necessary supply of naval stores, we sailed out of the bay on the 9th of May, and on the 14th, we got into the south-east trade-wind, and steered to the westward of the islands of St Helena and Ascension.  On the 31st, being in latitude 12 deg. 48’ S., longitude 15 deg. 40’ W., the magnetic needle was found to have no dip.

On the 12th of June, we passed the equator for the fourth time during this voyage, in longitude 26 deg. 16’ W. We now began to perceive the effects of a current setting N. by E., half a knot an hour.  It continued in this direction till the middle of July, when it began to set a little to the southward of the west.

On the 12th of August, we made the western coast of Ireland, and after a fruitless attempt to get into Port Galway, from whence it was Captain Gore’s intentions to have sent the journals and maps of our voyage to London, we were obliged, by strong southerly winds, to steer to the northward.  Our next object was to put into Lough Swilly; but the wind continuing in the same quarter, we stood on to the northward of Lewis Island; and on the 22d of August, at eleven in the morning, both ships came to an anchor at Stromness.  From hence, I was dispatched by Captain Gore, to acquaint the Board of Admiralty with our arrival; and on the 4th day of October the ships arrived safe at the Nore, after an absence of four years, two months, and twenty-two days.

On quitting the Discovery at Stromness, I had the satisfaction of leaving the whole crew in perfect health; and at the same time, the number of convalescents on board the Resolution did not exceed two or three, of whom only one was incapable of service.  In the course of our voyage, the Resolution lost but five men by sickness, three of whom were in a precarious state of health at our departure from England; the Discovery did not lose a man.  An unremitting attention to the regulations established by Captain Cook, with which the world is already acquainted, may be justly considered as the principal cause, under the blessing of Divine Providence, of this singular success.  But the baneful effects of salt provisions might perhaps, in the end, have been felt, notwithstanding these salutary precautions, if we had not assisted them, by availing ourselves of every substitute, our situation at various times afforded.  These frequently consisting of articles, which our people had not been used to consider as food for men, and being sometimes exceedingly nauseous, it required the joint aid of persuasion, authority, and example, to conquer their prejudices and disgusts.

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A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 17 from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.