The island of Nantucket lies in latitude 41 degrees 10 minutes. 60 miles S. from Cape Cod; 27 S. from Hyanes or Barnstable, a town on the most contiguous part of the great peninsula; 21 miles E. by S. from Cape Pog, on the vineyard; 50 E. by S. from Wood’s Hole, on Elizabeth Island; 80 miles S. from Boston; 120 from Rhode Island; 800 N. from Bermudas.  Sherborn is the only town on the island, which consists of about 530 houses, that have been framed on the main; they are lathed and plastered within, handsomely painted and boarded without; each has a cellar underneath, built with stones fetched also from the main:  they are all of a similar construction and appearance; plain, and entirely devoid of exterior or interior ornament.  I observed but one which was built of bricks, belonging to Mr.——­, but like the rest it is unadorned.  The town stands on a rising sandbank, on the west side of the harbour, which is very safe from all winds.  There are two places of worship, one for the society of Friends, the other for that of Presbyterians; and in the middle of the town, near the market-place, stands a simple building, which is the county court-house.  The town regularly ascends toward the country, and in its vicinage they have several small fields and gardens yearly manured with the dung of their cows, and the soil of their streets.  There are a good many cherry and peach trees planted in their streets and in many other places; the apple tree does not thrive well, they have therefore planted but few.  The island contains no mountains, yet is very uneven, and the many rising grounds and eminences with which it is filled, have formed in the several valleys a great variety of swamps, where the Indian grass and the blue bent, peculiar to such soils, grow with tolerable luxuriancy.  Some of the swamps abound with peat, which serves the poor instead of firewood.  There are fourteen ponds on this island, all extremely useful, some lying transversely, almost across it, which greatly helps to divide it into partitions for the use of their cattle; others abound with peculiar fish and sea fowls.  Their streets are not paved, but this is attended with little inconvenience, as it is never crowded with country carriages; and those they have in the town are seldom made use of but in the time of the coming in and before the sailing of their fleets.  At my first landing I was much surprised at the disagreeable smell which struck me in many parts of the town; it is caused by the whale oil, and is unavoidable; the neatness peculiar to these people can neither remove nor prevent it.  There are near the wharfs a great many storehouses, where their staple commodity is deposited, as well as the innumerable materials which are always wanted to repair and fit out so many whalemen.  They have three docks, each three hundred feet long, and extremely convenient; at the head of which there are ten feet of water.  These docks are built like those in Boston, of logs fetched from the continent,