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.
Being 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.
Having got through the ship's duty, and washed and shaved, we went
below, and had a fine time overhauling our chests, laying aside the
clothes we meant to go ashore in and throwing overboard all that
were worn out and good for nothing.
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