Saturday, 17th.  The wind was light all day, which kept us back somewhat; but a fine breeze springing up at nightfall, we were running fast in toward the land.  At six o’clock we expected to have the ship hove-to for soundings, as a thick fog, coming up, showed we were near them; but no order was given, and we kept on our way.  Eight o’clock came, and the watch went below, and, for the whole of the first hour the ship was driving on, with studding-sails out, alow and aloft, and the night as dark as a pocket.  At two bells the captain came on deck, and said a word to the mate, when the studding-sails were hauled into the tops, or boom-ended, the after yards backed, the deep-sea-lead carried forward, and everything got ready for sounding.  A man on the spritsail yard with the lead, another on the cat-head with a handful of the line coiled up, another in the fore chains, another in the waist, and another in the main chains, each with a quantity of the line coiled away in his hand. ``All ready there, forward?’’—­ ``Aye, aye, sir!’’—­ ``He-e-ave!’’—­ ``Watch! ho! watch!’’ sings out the man on the spritsail yard, and the heavy lead drops into the water. ``Watch! ho! watch!’’ bawls the man on the cat-head, as the last fake of the coil drops from his hand, and ``Watch! ho! watch!’’ is shouted by each one as the line falls from his hold, until it comes to the mate, who tends the lead, and has the line in coils on the quarter-deck.  Eighty fathoms and no bottom!  A depth as great as the height of St. Peters!  The line is snatched in a block upon the swifter, and three or four men haul it in and coil it away.  The after yards are braced full, the studding-sails hauled out again, and in a few minutes more, the ship had her whole way upon her.  At four bells backed again, hove the lead, and—­ soundings! at sixty fathoms!  Hurrah for Yankee land!  Hand over hand we hauled the lead in, and the captain, taking it to the light, found black mud on the bottom.  Studding-sails taken in; after yards filled, and ship kept on under easy sail all night, the wind dying away.

The soundings on the American coast are so regular that a navigator knows as well where he has made land by the soundings, as he would by seeing the land.  Black mud is the soundings of Block Island.  As you go toward Nantucket, it changes to a dark sand; then, sand and white shells; and on George’s Banks, white sand; and so on.  As our soundings showed us to be off Block Island, our course was due east, to Nantucket Shoals and the South Channel; but the wind died away and left us becalmed in a thick fog, in which we lay the whole of Sunday.  At noon of—­

Sunday, 18th, Block Island bore, by calculation, N.W. 1/4 W. fifteen miles; but the fog was so thick all day that we could see nothing.