Page:Voyage in search of La Perouse, volume 1 (Stockdale).djvu/167

] on the following day. The land where they have their abode may poibly be dicovered, when thee eas hall be more frequented by navigators.

14th. A fall of the mercury in the barometer from 28 inches 3 lines, to 27 inches 7 lines, announced the approach of violent gales, which blew from W. and S.W. and raied the billows o high that they frequently dahed over our decks. One of them, that had entangled our mizen chains, broke againt the tern of the veel with uch force, that the ailors thought we had truck upon a rock. The hock was tremendous, and ome of the tore-rooms intantly leaked.

The violence of the hock had thrown the Commander againt one of the corners of a barrel-organ, intended as a preent to ome avage chief. The urgeon thought at firt that he had fractured one of his fale ribs; and the pain was o great, that, whenever he neezed, it threw him into a fainting fit. However, he oon recovered his health.

During the night the atmophere was filled with a uperabundance of electric matter: a part was drawn off by means of our conductors, upon the top of which we oberved a luminous peck, that vanihed and re-appeared everal times in ucceion. The ea appeared more phophoric than uual. In