S.W. to N.W. and the
currents ran rapidly to the southward, as far as 45 deg. latitude, where
they were merely perceptible. No ground was reached by sounding till the
27th at night, when they were in latitude 47 deg., and about thirty-five
leagues from the coast of Patagonia. In this position, they had seventy
fathoms, and an oozy bottom with black and grey sand. From the 27th till
they saw land, they had pretty regular soundings, in 67, 60, 55, 50, 47,
and 40 fathoms, when they got sight of Cape Virgin, or, as Anson calls
it, Cape Virgin Mary, the same name by which it was known to Sir John
Narborough. Bougainville advises not to approach near the coast till
coming to latitude 49 deg., as there is a hidden rock in 48 deg. 30', at six or
seven leagues off shore, which he says he discovered when sailing here
in 1765. He then ran within a quarter of a league of it, and the person
who first saw it, took it to be a _grampus_.

He now enters upon a discussion respecting the longitude of this cape,
of which he got sight on the 2d December, and which is certainly an
interesting point in geography, as it determines the length of the
straits. This however may be omitted, as the question is considered in
the account of Captain Cook's Second Voyage, and will of course come
before the reader in its proper place. Though differing with Anson as to
its precise position, Bougainville admits that his lordship's view of it
is most exactly true.

Contrary winds and stormy weather opposed the entrance into the straits
for several days, and after having entered, obliged him to lie-to
between the shores of Terra del Fuego and the continent. His foresail
was split on the 4th December, and as he had then only twenty fathom,
the fear of the breakers which extend S.S.E. off the cape, induced him
to scud under bare poles, which, however, facilitated his bending
another foresail to the yard. He afterwards discovered that these
soundings were not so alarming as he then imagined them to be, as they
were in fact those in the channel; and he remarks, for the benefit of
succeeding navigators, that a gravelly bottom shews the position to be
nearer the Terra del Fuego coast, than that of the continent, where a
fine sandy, and sometimes an oozy bottom will be found. On the evening
of this day, he brought-to again, under main and mizen-stay-sails, but
after several disadvantageous tacks, got somewhat further from the coast
towards night. At four o'clock