fountain?  Here was indeed a wonder of the Deep!  I may call it the Romance of his Voyage!  Those very shoals, fields, and floating mountains of ice, among which he steered his perilous course, and which presented such terrifying prospects of destruction; those, I say, were the very means of his support, by supplying him abundantly with what he most wanted.  It had been said that those stupendous masses of ice, called islands or mountains, melted into fresh water, though Crantz, the relator of that paradox, did not imagine they originated from the sea, but that they were first formed in the great rivers of the North, and being carried down into the ocean, were afterwards increased to that amazing height by the snow that fell upon them*.  But that all frozen sea-water would thaw into fresh, had either never been asserted, or had met with little credit.  This is certain that Captain Cook expected no such transmutation, and therefore was agreeably surprised to find he had one difficulty less to encounter, that of preserving the health of his men so long on salt-provisions, with a scanty allowance of corrupted water, or what he could procure by distillation The melted ice of the sea was not only fresh but soft, and so wholesome, as to show the fallacy of human reason unsupported by experiments.  An ancient of great authority had assigned, from theory, bad qualities to melted snow; and from that period to the present times, this prejudice extended to ice had not been quite removed.

[* Hist. of Greenland, b.  I. ch, ii. para 11, 12.]

In this circumnavigation, amidst sleets and falls of snow, fogs, and much moist weather, the Resolution enjoyed nearly the same good state of health she had done in the temperate and torrid zones.  It appears only from the journal of the Surgeon, that towards the end of the first course* some of the crew began to complain of the scurvy; but the disease made little progress, except in one who had become early an invalid from another cause.  The other disorders were likewise inconsiderable, such as common colds, slight diarrhoeas, and intermittents that readily yielded to the Bark:  there were also some fevers of a continued form, but which by timely care never rose to an alarming height.  Much commendation is therefore due to the attention and abilities of Mr. PATTEN, the Surgeon of the Resolution, for having so well seconded his Captain in the discharge of his duty.  For it must be allowed, that in despite of the best regulations and the best provisions, there will always be among a numerous crew, during a long voyage, some casualties more or less productive of sickness; and that unless there be an intelligent medical assistant on board, many under the wisest Commander will perish, that otherwise might have been saved.

[* Viz.  The voyage between the Cape of Good Hope and New Zealand.]