(*Footnote. The above names were obtained at a subsequent visit on our return to England the following year.)
The winds during our stay performed two or three revolutions of the compass but they partook chiefly of the character of sea and land-breezes: during the night and early part of the morning the wind was usually light from the northward and at ten o'clock, gradually dying away, was succeeded by a wind from the sea, generally from South-West or South-East; this sea-breeze occasionally blew fresh until four o'clock in the evening when it would gradually diminish with the setting sun to a light air.
The barometrical column ranged between 29.75 and 30.22 inches; a fall of the mercury preceded a westerly wind, and a rise predicted it from the South-East: when it stood at thirty inches we had sea-breezes from south with fine weather. The easterly winds were dry; westerly ones the reverse. The moisture of the atmosphere, for want of a better hygrometer, was ascertained with tolerable precision by the state of a small piece of sea-weed, the weight of which varied according to the dryness or moisture of the atmosphere between one and three scruples. I found it on all occasions extremely sensible, and very often to predict a change of wind much sooner than the barometer.
Fahrenheit's thermometer ranged between 64 and 74 degrees, but the usual extremes were between 66 and 70 degrees.
1822. January 1.
During the day of the 1st of January the depth of the bar was frequently sounded but as there was not more than ten feet and a half water upon it we were necessarily detained at the anchorage.
January 2.