Page:A Voyage of Discovery and Research in the Southern and Antarctic Regions Vol 1.djvu/71

] frequently before observed. It was about sixty or seventy feet in diameter, and much brighter in the centre than at the edges. It consisted of aggregated myriads of animalculæ, which emit a beautiful phosphorescent light when agitated by the vessel passing through their mass.

In the evening of the 19th, having reached the assigned position of the shoal called "the Eight Stones," we hove to, and tried for, but could not obtain, soundings with three hundred fathoms of line, adding another to the many proofs of the nonexistence of that supposed danger.

At daylight the next morning Madeira island was seen, and we anchored in Funchal Roads in the afternoon. By the kind and prompt attention of Mr. Stothard, the English consul, we were enabled at once to commence the necessary observations for rating our chronometers, and for the magnetic desiderata of dip, variation, and intensity,—the principal objects of our visit to this delightful spot. Some uncertainty still existing as to the exact altitude of Pico Ruivo, the highest mountain of the island, above the level of the sea, a party of officers was despatched to its summit, with two mountain barometers, for the purpose of its determination: this service was entrusted to Lieutenants Wilmot and Lefroy of the Royal Artillery, and corresponding observations were made with the standard barometers of the Erebus and Terror, near high-water mark, by the officers of the ships.

The result of these operations gave, for the height