In the evening we had three islands of ice in sight, all of them large; especially one, which was larger than any we had yet seen. The side opposed to us seemed to be a mile in extent; if so, it could not be less than three in circuit. As we passed it in the night, a continual cracking was heard, occasioned, no doubt, by pieces breaking from it. For, in the morning of the 6th, the sea, for some distance round it, was covered with large and small pieces; and the island itself did not appear so large as it had done the evening before. It could not be less than 100 feet high; yet such was the impetuous force and height of the waves, which were broken against it, by meeting with such a sudden resistance, that they rose considerably higher. In the evening, we were in the latitude 59° 58ʹ south, longitude 118° 39ʹ east. The 7th, the wind was variable in the N. E. and S. E. quarters, attended with snow and sleet, till the evening. Then the weather became fair, the sky cleared up, and the night was remarkably pleasant, as well as the morning of the next day; which, for the brightness of the sky, and serenity and mildness of the weather, gave place to none we had seen since we left the Cape of Good Hope. It was such as is little known in this sea; and, to make it still more agreeable, we had not one island of ice in sight. The mercury in the thermometer rose to 40. Mr. Wales and the master made some observations of the moon and stars, which satisfied us that, when our latitude was 59° 44ʹ, our longitude was 121° 9ʹ. At three o’clock in the afternoon, the calm was succeeded by a breeze at S. E. The sky, at the same time, was suddenly obscured, and seemed to presage an approaching storm, which accordingly happened; for, in the evening, the wind shifted to south, blew in squalls, attended with sleet and rain, and a prodigious high sea. Having nothing to take care of but ourselves, we kept two or three points from the wind, and ran at a good rate to the E. N. E. under our two courses, and close-reefed top-sails. The gale continued till the evening of the 10th; then it abated; the wind shifted to the westward; and we had fair weather, and but little wind, during the night, attended with a sharp frost. The next morning, being in the latitude of 57° 56ʹ, longitude 130°, the wind shifted to N. E. and blew a fresh gale, with which we stood S. E., having frequent showers of snow and sleet, and a long hollow swell from S. S. E. and S. E. by S. This swell did not go down till two days after the wind which raised it had not only ceased to blow, but had shifted, and blown fresh at opposite points, good part of the time. Whoever attentively considers this, must conclude, that there can be no land to the south, but what must be at a great distance.