head for land.

Hence we gave up any further search in this quarter, and directed our
course to the north, for the shortest way to cut the Equator, and then,
by the help of the north-east trade-wind, to reach Radack, where we
intended to stop and make observations on the pendulum, the results of
which, in the neighbourhood of the Equator, would be important to us. I
appointed Otdia, belonging to this chain of islands, for our residence,
as affording the most convenient anchorage for large ships.

We were so much delayed by calms, that we could not till the 19th of
April reach the ninth degree of south latitude. Here we encountered
gusts of wind and torrents of rain, and a current carried us daily from
twenty to thirty miles westward. When we were under three degrees south
latitude, and one hundred and eighty degrees longitude, the current
suddenly changed, and we were driven just as strongly to the East,--a
circumstance too remarkable to be passed over in silence. At a distance
from land in the vicinity of the Equator, the currents are always
westerly. Here it was precisely contrary; from what cause I am unable to
explain.

From the fifth degree of south latitude to the Equator, we daily
perceived signs of the neighbourhood of land. When we were exactly in 4
deg. 15' latitude, and 178 deg. longitude, heavy gales brought swarms of
butterflies and small land-birds to the ship; we must therefore have
been near land, but we looked for it in vain; and this discovery remains
for some future navigator.

On the 22nd we cut the Equator in the longitude 179 deg. 43', and once
more found ourselves in our own Northern hemisphere--nearer to our native
country, though the course by which we must reach it would be still
longer than that we had traversed. Our old acquaintance the Great Bear
showed himself once more, and we looked upon him with joy, as though he
had brought intelligence from our distant homes.

We now again employed Parrot's machine to draw up water from a depth of
800 fathoms. Its temperature was only six degrees of Reaumur, while that
of the water at the surface was twenty-three degrees.

A tolerably strong wind, which blew during several successive days,
brought us within sight of the Radack Islands, on the morning of the
28th of April.

To those who are yet unacquainted with these islands, and cannot or will
not have recourse to my former voyage, I must be excused giving a few
particulars concerning them.