Page:A Voyage of Discovery and Research in the Southern and Antarctic Regions Vol 1.djvu/102

32 swell from that direction. The result of several experiments gave only twenty-two feet for the entire height of the waves, or eleven feet above and below the general level of the ocean; the velocity of the undulations eighty-nine miles per hour, and the interval between each wave nineteen hundred and ten feet.

Steering for the shoal, called Kattendyk on our charts, in lat. 33° S. and long. 4° 52′ E, we kept the lead constantly going, but could not get soundings with from one hundred and twenty to one hundred and fifty fathoms, although we passed exactly over its presumed position; and the next day, in lat. 33° 10′ S. and long. 5° 50′ E., we could not reach the bottom with five hundred and eighty fathoms.

At 9h. 30m. , when in lat. 33° 21′ S. and long. 9° E., being perfectly calm, we lowered the boats down and again succeeded in obtaining deep soundings: on this occasion, in two thousand six hundred and seventy-seven fathoms, and at a distance of about four hundred and fifty miles west of the Cape of Good Hope. The current was setting to the westward, at the rate of a mile per hour; and for several days previously we had experienced its influence fully to that amount.

This evening we observed a gradual diminution of the temperature of the air and the sea, as we approached the coast of Africa; and before midnight we entered a cold mist, which prevented our seeing to any considerable distance: the water appearing