Page:A Voyage of Discovery and Research in the Southern and Antarctic Regions Vol 1.djvu/415

] followed. Heavier clouds soon after rose in the west (to windward), and although we observed no more vivid exhibitions of the Aurora, it continued faintly visible until midnight. Between 10 and 11, when the sky was very clear in the S.W. quarter of the hemisphere, only one falling star was detected, although carefully watched for.

It blew a strong breeze from the northward all day, so as to prevent our making much way to the N.W.; and finding from good observations during the forenoon that we had increased the westerly variation to 8° 47′, I did not consider it necessary to stretch any further to the westward. We therefore wore round at 11 15 for the purpose of recrossing the line of no variation, and of visiting the spot assigned, in my instructions, to one of the foci of greater magnetic intensity, which I had been prevented doing on our way to Van Diemen's Land from Kerguelen Island. At noon we were in lat. 57° 21′ S., long. 127° 35′ E.: during the day we observed several large flocks of a small dark-coloured petrel, which we took to be the young of the Cape-pigeon proceeding to the northward: by the length of time they took to fly past us, we estimated some of those flocks to be from six to ten miles in length, two or three miles broad, and very densely crowded together, literally darkening the sky during the two or three hours they were passing over and about us. A few stormy petrel were also seen.

At 10 30 a single flash of forked lightning was seen in the N.N.E., and at the same time an arch of Aurora extended across the zenith from the