Being Now Fairly Launched Into The Atlantic I Issued A General Memorandum
For The Guidance Of The Officers During The Prosecution Of The Service On
Which We Were Engaged, And Communicated To Them The Several Points Of
Information That Were Expected From Us By My Instructions.
I also
furnished them with copies of the signals which had been agreed upon
between Lieutenant Parry and myself to be used in the event of our
reaching the northern coast of America and falling in with each other.
At the end of the month of June our progress was found to have been
extremely slow owing to a determined North-West wind and much sea. We had
numerous birds hovering round the ship; principally fulmars (Procellaria
glacialis) and shearwaters (Procellaria puffinus) and not unfrequently
saw shoals of grampusses sporting about, which the Greenland seamen term
finners from their large dorsal fin. Some porpoises occasionally appeared
and whenever they did the crew were sanguine in their expectation of
having a speedy change in the wind which had been so vexatiously contrary
but they were disappointed in every instance.
Thursday, July 1.
The month of July set in more favourably; and aided by fresh breezes we
advanced rapidly to the westward, attended daily by numerous fulmars and
shearwaters. The Missionary brig had parted company on the 22nd of June.
We passed directly over that part of the ocean where the Sunken Land of
Buss is laid down in the old, and continued in the Admiralty charts.
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