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when the skipper, Mr. John Falconer, brought the yacht up to Dunedin with her crew and stores aboard, and on the Monday following the various instruments were placed in her, and in the afternoon of that day she was visited by His Honor the Superintendent and other gentlemen interested in the success of the Expedition, and immediately afterwards left her moorings, but could not drop down the harbor until the morning tide.

May 19th.

Further delays prevented us from starting until this day at noon, when unfortunately we got the flood tide against us, with only a light southerly breeze in our favor, so that it was 5 p.m. when we reached the Heads, where we anchored just within the bar. Captain Thomson piloted us down thus far, in order to assure himself that everything was in proper working order, and we were also accompanied so far by Mr. Mansford, the Resident Magistrate of the Port. We had a pleasant though tedious sail, and when our visitors left us, we fired a parting gun, and exchanged three hearty cheers for the success of the Expedition. The voyage round to the Bluff had few incidents worthy of record. On the evening of the 20th May, we sailed from Otago Heads with a fair breeze from the N.E., but it died away during the night, and till the evening of the 24th we drifted slowly along with only light but favorable puffs of wind. The weather during this time was delightful, and there was nothing in the clear warm air, richly tinted sky, and delicate veil of haze that hung over the land, to remind one that it was only a month from the shortest day. The long swell which at all times rolls up from the south caused the only drawback to our enjoyment, as it pitched the little vessel most unmercifully. At night the sea was rendered brightly phosphorescent, principally by swarms of minute cilia grade medusae.

A constant current sets up this part of the coast to the northward, and is stated in the N.Z. Pilot at from 1 to 1½ miles per hour. This may be the case close in shore, but as our course lay 7 miles from land, we did not find it to exceed ¼ mile per hour.

When anchored in the channel within the bar at the Heads, the current was found to run at the rate of 2¼ knots per hour alternately with the ebb and flood tides, and the temperature of the ebbing waters to be 1 deg. Fah. lower than that of the flood, this difference being constant both with day and night tides, the ebb being 50 deg. and the flood 51 deg. When 6 or 7 miles from land the temperature was, however, constantly 51 deg.

On the evening of the 23rd we were off the Molyneux Bay, and during the night we showed lights just in time to escape being run down by the s.s. City of Hobart.

During the 24th there were signs of stormy weather brewing in the south, so that we hugged close to the land between the Nuggets and Tautuku Bay, ready to take shelter in any of the snug little anchorages that occur along this coast, in the event of the wind drawing through Foveaux Straits from the westward.

The coast here is picturesque, being precipitous with numerous indentations. The cliffs, which rise to an average height of 270 feet, are composed of stratified rock (greenstones, porphyritic conglomerates, and felspathic sandstones, most probably, judging from previous observations in the interior) dipping to the N.E., with from 12° to 20° inclination to the horizon. At Long Point, however, these strata form a lofty scarp, which is continued westward into the interior and forms the northern boundary of a valley, which is apparently of some extent. And, south-west of this, the coast has a less bold character and presents a greater extent of available land contiguous with the shore.

This district much resembles Moeraki, excepting that the woods, which from the sea look extremely dense and scrubby, everywhere come close down to the beach. Nevertheless, this must ultimately become a valuable portion of the Province, as it is well suited for small settlements situated by the little harbors, which are numerous along the coast, and round which there are generally good sized patches of flat alluvial land.

When off Long Point in the afternoon, and just as we were losing sight of the Nuggets those curious pinnacles of rock became thrown up above the horizon to a considerable altitude by refraction. There was a dull haze over the sea at this time, and the amount of moisture in the air was its usual fine weather average of sixty per cent, so that the refracting medium was probably a local belt of moister air caused by the mixing of the air currents from either side of Stewart’s Island. This remarkable mirage, it is remarked in the N.Z. Pilot, usually affects the outline of the islands at the eastern extremity of Foveaux Straits before the setting in of an easterly wind, and it proved to be a sure precursor in this instance, for at midnight a fresh breeze sprung up from that quarter. This was so favorable an opportunity for getting well through the Straits that I abandoned the intention I had of examining Waikawa Harbour and sailed on for Riverton, but when opposite the Bluff, the wind began to change to the S.W., so that we had to run into that harbour, where we anchored at 1 p.m. on the 25th.

As the schooner might perhaps have been delayed here for some days, I at once landed in order to proceed to Riverton without delay by way of Invercargill, that I might lose no time in engaging the services of a native crew to accompany the Expedition in one of their large sealing yawls of about five tons burthen. Without entering the inner basin of the Bluff Harbour, we had dropt anchor just