leagues; and Cooper’s Isle S. 31 deg.  W. In this situation a lurking rock, which lies off Sandwich Bay, five miles from the land, bore W. 1/2 N., distant one mile, and near this rock were several breakers.  In the afternoon we had a prospect of a ridge of mountains behind Sandwich Bay, whose lofty and icy summits were elevated high above the clouds.  The wind continued at S.S.W. till six o’clock, when it fell to a calm.  At this time Cape Charlotte bore N. 31 deg.  W., and Cooper’s Island W.S.W.  In this situation we found the variation, by the azimuths, to be 11 deg. 39’, and by the amplitude, 11 deg. 12’ E. At ten o’clock, a light breeze springing up at north, we steered to the south till twelve, and then brought-to for the night.

At two o’clock in the morning of the 20th we made sail to S.W. round Cooper’s Island.  It is a rock of considerable height, about five miles in circuit, and one mile from the main.  At this isle the main coast takes a S.W. direction for the space of four or five leagues to a point, which I called Cape Disappointment.  Off that are three small isles, the southernmost of which is green, low, and flat, and lies one league from the cape.

As we advanced to S.W. land opened, off this point, in the direction of N. 60 deg.  W., and nine leagues beyond it.  It proved an island quite detached from the main, and obtained the name of Pickersgill Island, after my third officer.  Soon after a point of the main, beyond this island, came in sight, in the direction of N. 55 deg.  W., which exactly united the coast at the very point we had seen, and taken the bearing of, the day we first came in with it, and proved to a demonstration that this land, which we had taken for part of a great continent, was no more than an island of seventy leagues in circuit.

Who would have thought that an island of no greater extent than this, situated between the latitude of 54 deg. and 55 deg., should, in the very height of summer, be in a manner wholly covered, many fathoms deep, with frozen snow, but more especially the S.W. coast?  The very sides and craggy summits of the lofty mountains were cased with snow and ice; but the quantity which lay in the valleys is incredible; and at the bottom of the bays the coast was terminated by a wall of ice of considerable height.  It can hardly be doubted that a great deal of ice is formed here in the water, which in the spring is broken off, and dispersed over the sea; but this island cannot produce the ten-thousandth part of what we saw; so that either there must be more land, or the ice is formed without it.  These reflections led me to think that the land we had seen the preceding day might belong to an extensive track, and I still had hopes of discovering a continent.  I must confess the disappointment I now met with did not affect me much; for, to judge of the bulk by the sample, it would not be worth the discovery.