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Upon working out my meridian altitude I found the ship's latitude to be 38 degrees 43 minutes south and we were steering true east; consequently if my calculations were accurate, we were at that moment on the exact parallel of Saint Paul, which also according to my calculations then lay in line with our jibboom, eighty miles distant.
The following day was windy and cloudy, but no more rain fell; about an inch and a half had fallen altogether. We remained in camp to-day, and dried all our things. The position of the camp was in latitude 24 degrees 12' 8" and longitude about 118 degrees 20'. On the 10th of May we left, still following our creek about east-north-east.
While Captain Cook was at this country, he neglected nothing which could promote the knowledge of science and navigation. Here, as every where else, he settled the latitude and longitude of places; marked the variations of the compass, and recorded the nature of the tides.
At this time we were close under the West shore in 7 fathoms Water; Latitude 36 degrees 51 minutes South. Friday, 24th. P.M., Fresh Gales and dark, Cloudy, squally weather, with Thunder, Lightning, and rain.
We have seen that upraised marine remains occur at intervals, and in some parts almost continuously, from latitude 45 degrees 35' to 12 degrees S., along the shores of the Pacific. This is a distance, in a north and south line, of 2,075 geographical miles.
"O, I hear them talk of these things, and you know I saw a cargo 'run' on the south side only last month," continued the boy. "There were three hundred or more filed off from that felucca, two by two, to the shore." "It is a slaver," said one of the officers, "a little out of her latitude, that's all." "A beautiful craft," said the lady, earnestly; "can it be a slaver, and so beautiful."
The banks of the river are now assuming an equatorial appearance for we are in the third degree of latitude and palms grow in great profusion but the country is flat and uninteresting. About midday we land at Gembele, a large village with an extensive plantation. The Chief is a young, good-looking man with refined European features and a very gentlemanly manner.
Its situation by our observations is in latitude 67 degrees 42 minutes 35 seconds North, longitude 115 degrees 49 minutes 33 seconds West, variation 50 degrees 20 minutes 14 seconds East. This rapid is a sort of shelving cascade, about three hundred yards in length, having a descent of from ten to fifteen feet.
In fact, finding similar fossil plants at places widely different in latitude, and hence in climate, is, in the present state of our knowledge, rather an argument against than for their having existed cotemporaneously. The Cycadeae, especially, whose fossil remains afford so much ground for geological speculations, are far from yielding such precise data as is supposed.
Another island of large size in the latitude of southern Scotland, but twice as far to the west, would be "almost wholly covered with everlasting snow," and would have each bay terminated by ice-cliffs, whence great masses would be yearly detached: this island would boast only of a little moss, grass, and burnet, and a titlark would be its only land inhabitant.
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