[Footnote 6:  Probably Captain Cook means Muller’s map, prefixed to his History of the Russian Discoveries.—­D.]

We now found the coast to trend very much to the west, inclining hardly any thing to the north; and as we had the wind mostly from the westward, and but little of it, our progress was slow.  On the 9th at noon, the latitude was 59 deg. 30’, and the longitude 217 deg..  In this situation the nearest land was nine leagues distant; and Mount St Elias bore N., 30 deg.  E, nineteen leagues distant.  This mountain lies twelve leagues inland in the latitude of 60 deg. 27’, and in the longitude of 219 deg..  It belongs to a ridge of exceedingly high mountains, that may be reckoned a continuation of the former, as they are only divided from them by the plain above mentioned.  They extend as far to the west as the longitude of 217 deg.; where, although they do not end, they lose much of their height, and become more broken and divided.

At noon on the 10th, our latitude was 59 deg. 51’, and our longitude 215 deg. 56’, being no more than three leagues from, the coast of the continent, which extended from E. 1/2 N., to N.W. 1/2 W., as far as the eye could reach.  To the westward of this last direction was an island that extended from N., 52 deg.  W., to S., 85 deg.  W., distant six leagues.  A point shoots out from the main toward the N.E. end of the island, bearing, at this time, N., 30 deg.  W., five or six leagues distant.  This point I named Cape Suckling.  The point of the cape is low; but within it, is a tolerably high hill, which is disjoined from the mountains by low land; so that, at a distance, the cape looks like an island.  On the north side of Cape Suckling is a bay that appeared to be of some extent, and to be covered from most winds.  To this bay I had some thoughts of going, to stop our leak, as all our endeavours to do it at sea had proved ineffectual.  With this view, I steered for the cape; but as we had only variable light breezes, we approached it slowly.  However, before night, we were near enough to see some low land spitting out from the cape to the north-west, so as to cover the east part of the bay from the south wind.  We also saw some small islands in the bay, and elevated rocks between the cape and the north-east end of the island.  But still there appeared to be a passage on both sides of these rocks; and I continued steering for them all night, having from forty-three to twenty-seven fathoms water over a muddy bottom.

At four o’clock next morning, the wind, which had been mostly at N.E., shifted to N. This being against us, I gave up the design of going within the island, or into the bay, as neither could be done without loss of time.  I therefore bore up for the west end of the island.  The wind blew faint, and at ten o’clock it fell calm.  Being not far from the island, I went in a boat, and landed upon it, with a view of seeing what lay on the other side; but finding it farther to the hills than I expected,