Page:Voyage of Discovery to the North Pacific Ocean, and Round the World in the Years 1791–95, volume 1.djvu/391

322 1792. June, Satui uay 30. vas the feii more favorable to our wants, the fteCji rocky fhores pre- vented the ule of ilic feine, and not a fidi at the bottom could be tempted to take the hook.

I had abfehtcd niyfelf from the prefent furveying excurfions, in order to procure fome oblervations lor the longitude here, and to arrange the charts of the dilferent furve)s in the order they had been made. Thefe when fo methodized, my third lieutenant Mr. Baker had undertaken to copy and embcUidi, and who, in point of accuracy, neatnefs, and fuch difpatch as circumllances admitted, certainly excelled in a very high degree. To conclude our operations up to the prefent period fome further angles were required. Befide thefe I was defirous of acquiring fome knowledge of the main channel of the gulph we had quitted on monday afternoon, and to which no one of our boats had been direfted.

Early the next morning I fat out in the yawl on that purfuit, with a favorable breeze from the n.w. which fliortly (hifted to the oppoiite quarter, and blew a frefh gale, attended with a very heavy rain. Having reached by ten in the forenoon no further than the ifland under which we had anchored at midnight on the 25th, a profpeft of a certain continuance of the unfettled weather obliged me to abandon my defign, and return to the fliip; where I had the pleafure of hearing the launch and cutter had arrived foon after my departure, after having completed the examination of the continental coafl from the place where we had left it, the night we had entered the found, to about 3 hagues north- weltward of our prefent ftation, making the land near which we were then at anchor on our northern fide, an ifland, or a clufler of iflands of confiderable extent. Thefe gentlemen were likewife of opinion, that all the land before us to the wellward and n.w. from its infular appear- ance, formed an immenfe archipelago; but knowing Mr. Johnftone was direfted to examine that quarter, and coming within fight of the fhips, they had returned on board for further inftruftions.

On the commencement of their furvey, they found the continental fhore continue nearly in its N.w. dire6Hon to the eallern point of entrance into this found, which I called PoiiNT Sarah, and is fituated in latitude 50** 4'^, longitude 235'' 25'-^; its oppofite point, which I named Point