itudes, morning and evening, and meridian altitudes of the planets
and moon. Having thus gone eastwardly to the meridian of the western
coast of Georgia, we kept that meridian until we were in the latitude
from which we set out. We then took diagonal courses throughout the
entire extent of sea circumscribed, keeping a lookout constantly at the
masthead, and repeating our examination with the greatest care for a
period of three weeks, during which the weather was remarkably pleasant
and fair, with no haze whatsoever. Of course we were thoroughly
satisfied that, whatever islands might have existed in this vicinity at
any former period, no vestige of them remained at the present day. Since
my return home I find that the same ground was traced over, with equal
care, in 1822, by Captain Johnson, of the American schooner Henry, and
by Captain Morrell in the American schooner Wasp--in both cases with the
same result as in our own.

CHAPTER 16

It had been Captain Guy's original intention, after satisfying himself
about the Auroras, to proceed through the Strait of Magellan, and
up along the western coast of Patagonia; but information received at
Tristan d'Acunha induced him to steer to the southward, in the hope of
falling in with some small islands said to lie about the parallel of
60 degrees S., longitude 41 degrees 20' W. In the event of his
not discovering these lands, he designed, should the season prove
favourable, to push on toward the pole. Accordingly, on the twelfth of
December, we made sail in that direction. On the eighteenth we found
ourselves about the station indicated by Glass, and cruised for three
days in that neighborhood without finding any traces of the islands
he had mentioned. On the twenty-first, the weather being unusually
pleasant, we again made sail to the southward, with the resolution of
penetrating in that course as far as possible. Before entering upon this
portion of my narrative, it may be as well, for the information of those
readers who have paid little attention to the progress of discovery in
these regions, to give some brief account of the very few attempts at
reaching the southern pole which have hitherto been made.

That of Captain Cook was the first of which we have any distinct
account. In 1772 he sailed to the south in the Resolution, accompanied
by Lieutenant Furneaux in the Adventure. In December he found himself as
far as the fifty-eighth parallel of south latitude, and in