Part 2

September the 8th. We crossed by a moderate wind, a sea with the highest waves we met on the whole passage, attributed by the captain to the division between the great ocean and the inner American gulf; and soon after we met with waves greatly inferior to those we observed before.

September the 9th. In the afternoon we remarked that in some places the colour of the sea (which had been hitherto of a deep blue) was changed into a paler hue; some of these spots were narrow stripes of twelve or fourteen fathoms breadth, of a pale green colour, which is supposed to be caused by the sand, or as some say, by the weeds under water.

September the 12th. We were becalmed that day, and as we in this situation observed a ship, which we suspected to be a Spanish privateer, our fear was very great; but we saw some days after our arrival at Philadelphia the same ship arrive, and heard that they seeing us had been under the same apprehensions with ourselves.

September the 13th. Captain Lawson, who kept his bed for the greater part of the voyage, on account of an indisposition, assured us yesterday we were in all appearance very near America: but as the mate was of a different opinion, and as the sailors could see no land from the head of the mast, nor find ground by the lead, we steered on directly towards the land. About three o’clock in the morning the captain gave orders to heave the lead, and we found but ten fathom: the second mate himself took the lead and called out ten and fourteen fathoms, but a moment after the ship struck on the sand, and this shock was followed by four other very violent ones. The consternation was incredible; and very justly might it be so; for there were above eighty persons on board, and the ship had but one boat: but happily our ship got off again, after having been turned. At day break, which followed soon after (for the accident happened half an hour past four) we saw the continent of America within a Swedish mile before us: the coast was whitish, low, and higher up covered with firs. We found out, that the sand we struck on, lay opposite Arcadia in Maryland, in thirty-seven deg. fifty min. North lat.

We coasted the shores of Maryland all the day, but not being able to reach cape Hinlopen, where we intended to take a pilot on board, we cruized all night before the bay of Delaware. The darkness of the night made us expect a rain, but we found that only a copious fall of dew ensued, which made our coats quite wet, and the pages of a book, accidently left open on the deck, were in half an hours time after sun-setting likewise wet, and we were told by the captain and the sailors that both in England and in America a copious dew was commonly followed by a hot and sultry day.

September the 14th. We saw land on our larboard in the west, which appeared to be low, white, sandy, and higher up the country covered with firs, cape Hinlopen is a head of land running into the sea from the western shore, and has a village on it. The eastern shore belongs here to New Jersey, and the western to Pensylvania. The bay of Delaware has many sands, and from four to eleven fathom water.

The fine woods of oak, hiccory and firs covering both shores made a fine appearance, and were partly employed in ship-building at Philadelphia; for which purpose every year some English captains take a passage in autumn to this town, and superintend the building of new ships during winter, with which they go to sea next spring: and at this time it was more usual than common, as the French and Spanish privateers had taken many English merchant ships.

A little after noon we reached the mouth of Delaware river, which is here about three English miles broad, but decreases gradually so much, that it is scarcely a mile broad at Philadelphia.

Here we were delighted in seeing now and then between the woods some farm houses surrounded with corn fields, pastures well-stocked with cattle, and meadows covered with fine hay; and more than one sense was agreeably affected, when the wind brought to us the finest effluvia of odoriferous plants and flowers, or that of the fresh made hay: these agreeable sensations and the fine scenery of nature on this continent, so new to us, continued till it grew quite dark.

Here I will return to sea, and give the reader a short view of the various occurrences belonging to Natural-History, during our crossing the Ocean.

Of sea weeds (Fucus linn.) we saw August the 16th. and 17th. a kind which had a similarity to a bunch of onions tied together, these bunches were of the size of the fist, and of a white colour. Near the coast of America within the American gulf, September the 11th. we met likewise with several sea weeds, one species of which was called by the sailors rock-weed; another kind looked like a string of pearls, and another was white, about a foot long, narrow, every where equally wide and quite strait. From August the 24th. to September the 11th. we saw no other weeds, but those commonly going under the name of Gulf-weed, because they are supposed to come from the gulf of Florida; others call it Sargazo, and Dr. Linnæus, Fucus natans. Its stalk is very slender, rotundato-angulated, and of a dark green, it has many branches and each of them has numerous leaves disposed in a row, they are extremely thin, are serrated, and are a line or a line and a half wide, so that they bear a great resemblance to the leaves of Iceland-moss; their colour is a yellowish green. Its fruit in a great measure resembles unripe juniper berries, is round, greenish yellow, almost smooth on the outside, and grows under the leaves on short footstalks, of two or three lines length; under each leaf are from one to three berries, but I never have seen them exceed that number. Some berries were small, and when cut were quite hollow and consisted of a thin peel only, which is calculated to communicate their buoyancy to the whole plant. The leaves grow in proportion narrower, as they approach the extremities of the branches: their upper sides are smooth, the ribs are on the under sides, and there likewise appear small roots of two, three or four lines length. I was told by our mate that gulf weed, dried and pounded, was given in America to women in childbed, and besides this it is also used there in fevers. The whole ocean is as if it were covered with this weed, and it must also be in immense quantities in the gulf of Florida, from whence all this driving on the ocean is said to come. Several little shells pointed like horns, and Escharæ or Horn wracks are frequently found on it: and seldom is there one bundle of this plant to be met with, which does not contain either a minute shrimp, or a small crab, the latter of which is the Cancer minutus of Dr. Linnæus. Of these I collected eight, and of the former three, all which I put in a glass with water: the little shrimp moved as swift as an arrow round the glass, but sometimes its motion was slow, and sometimes it stood still on one side, or at the bottom of the glass. If one of the little crabs approached, it was seized by its forepaws, killed and sucked; for which reason they were careful to avoid their fate. It was quite of the shape of a shrimp; in swimming it moved always on one side, the sides and the tail moving alternately. It was capable of putting its forepaws entirely into its mouth: its antennæ were in continual motion. Having left these little shrimps together with the crabs during night, I found on the morning all the crabs killed and eaten by the shrimps. The former moved when alive with incredible swiftness in the water. Sometimes when they were quite at the bottom of the glass, with a motion something like to that of a Puceron or Podura of Linnæus; they came in a moment to the surface of the water. In swimming they moved all their feet very close, sometimes they held them down as other crabs do, sometimes they lay on their backs, but as soon as the motion of their feet ceased, they always sunk to the bottom. The remaining shrimps I preserved in spirits, and the loss of my little crabs was soon repaired by other specimens which are so plentiful in each of the floating bundles of gulf-weed. For a more minute description of which I must refer the reader to another work, I intend to publish. In some places we saw a crab of the size of the fist, swimming by the continual motion of its feet, which being at rest, the animal began immediately to sink. And one time I met with a great red crawfish, or lobster, floating on the surface of the sea.

Blubbers, or Medusæ Linn., we found of three kinds: the first is the Medusa aurita Linn.; it is round, purple coloured, opens like a bag, and in it are as if it were four white rings, their size varies from one inch diameter to six inches; they have not that nettling and burning quality which other blubbers have, such for instance as are on the coast of Norway, and in the ocean. These we met chiefly in the channel and in the Bay of Biscay.

After having crossed more than half of the ocean between Europe and America, we met with a kind of blubber, which is known to Sailors by the name of the Spanish or Portugueze man of War, it looks like a great bladder, or the lungs of a quadruped, compressed on both sides, about six inches in diameter, of a fine purple-red colour, and when touched by the naked skin of the human body, it causes a greater burning than any other kind of blubber. They are often overturned by the rolling of the waves, but they are again standing up in an instant, and keep the sharp or narrow side uppermost.

Within the American gulf we saw not only these Spanish men of War, but another kind too, for which the Sailors had no other name but that of a blubber. It was of the size of a pewter plate, brown in the middle, with a pale margin, which was in continual motion.

Of the Lepas anatifera Linn. I saw on the 30th. of August a log of wood, which floated on the ocean, quite covered. Of insects I saw in the channel, when we were in sight of the Isle of Wight several white butterflies, very like to the Papilio Brassicæ Linn. They never settled, and by their venturing at so great a distance from land they caused us just astonishment.

Some common flies were in our cabbin alive during the whole voyage, and it cannot therefore be determined whether they were originally in America, or whether they came over with the Europeans.

Of Cetaceous fish we met with Porpesses, or as some sailors call them Sea-hogs [2] (Delphinus Phocæna, Linn.) first in the channel and then they continued every where on this side the Azores, where they are the only fish navigators meet with; but beyond these isles they are seldom seen, till again in the neighbourhood of America we saw them equally frequent to the very mouth of Delaware river. They always appeared in shoals, some of which consisted of upwards of an hundred individuals; their swimming was very swift, and though they often swam along side of our ship, being taken as it were with the noise caused by the ship cutting the waves, they however soon outwent her, when they were tired with staring at her. They are from four to eight feet long, have a bill like in shape to that of a goose, a white belly, and leap up into the air frequently four feet high, and from four to eight feet in length; though their snoring indicates the effort which a leap of that nature costs them. Our sailors made many vain attempts to strike one of them with the harp iron from the forecastle, when they came within reach, but their velocity always eluded their skill.

Another cetaceous fish, of the Dolphin kind, [3] with which we met, is called by the sailors Bottle-nose, it swims in great shoals, has a head like a bottle, and is killed by a harpoon, and is sometimes eaten. These fish are very large, and some fully twelve feet long; their shape, and manner of tumbling and swimming make them nearly related to Porpesses. They are to be met with every where in the ocean from the channel to the very neighbourhood of America.

One Whale we saw at a distance, and knew it by the water which it spouted up.

A Dog-fish of a considerable size followed the ship for a little while, but it was soon out of sight, without our being able to determine to which species it belonged: this was the only cartilaginous fish we saw on the whole passage.

Of the bony fish, we saw several beyond the Azores, but never one on this side of those isles, one of them was of a large size, and we saw it at a distance; the sailors called it an Albecor, and it is Dr. Linnæus’s Scomber Thynnus.

The Dolphin of the English is the Dorado of the Portugueze, and Dr. Linnæus calls it Coryphæna Hippuris; it is about two feet and a half long, near the head six inches deep, and three inches broad; from the head the Dolphin decreases on all sides towards the tail, where its perpendicular depth is one inch and a half, and its breadth hardly one inch. The colour of the back near the head is a fine green on a silver ground, but near the tail of a deep blue; the belly is white, and sometimes mixed with a deep yellow, on the sides it has some round pale brown spots. It has six and not seven fins as was imagined; two of them are on the breast, two on the belly, one at the tail extending to the anus, and one along the whole back, which is of a fine blue: when the fish is just taken the extremities of the most outward rays in the tail were eight inches one from another. Their motion when they swam behind, or along side of the ship was very slow, and gave a fair opportunity to hit them with the harpoon, though some are taken with a hook and line, and a bait of chicken bowels, small fish, or pieces of his own species, or the flying fish, which latter are their chief food: and it is by their chasing them, that the flying fish leave their element to find shelter in one to which they are strangers. The Dolphins sometimes leap a fathom out of the water, and love to swim about casks and logs of wood, that sometimes drive in the sea. They are eaten with thick butter, when boiled, and sometimes fried, and afford a palatable food, but rather somewhat dry. In the bellies of the fish of this species which we caught, several animals were found, viz. an Ostracion; a little fish with blue eyes, which was yet alive, being just the moment before swallowed, and measuring two inches in length; another little fish; a curious marine insect, and a flying fish, all which not yet being damaged by digestion, I preserved in spirits.

The Flying Fish (Exocoetus volitans, Linn.) are always seen in great shoals, sometimes of an hundred or more getting at once out of the water, being pursued by greater fish, and chiefly by Dolphins; they rise about a yard, and even a fathom above the water in their flight, but this latter height they only are at, when they take their flight from the top of a wave; and sometimes it is said they fall on the deck of ships. The greatest distance they fly, is a good musket-shot, and this they perform in less than half a minute’s time; their motion is somewhat like that of the yellow-hammer, (Emberiza Citrinella, Linn.). It is very remarkable that I found the course they took always to be against the wind, and though I was contradicted by the sailors, who affirmed that they went at any direction, I nevertheless was confirmed in my opinion by a careful observation during the whole voyage, according to which they fly constantly either directly against the wind, or somewhat in an oblique direction. [4]

We saw likewise the fish called Bonetos, (Scomber Pelamys, Linn.) they were likewise in shoals, hunting some smaller fish, which chase caused a noise like to that of a cascade, because they were all swimming close in a body; but they always kept out of the reach of our harpoons.

Of amphibious animals, or reptiles; we met twice with a Turtle, one of which was sleeping, the other swam without taking notice of our ship; both were of two feet diameter.

Birds are pretty frequently seen on the ocean, though Aquatic Birds are more common than Land Birds.

The Petrel (Procellaria Pelagica, Linn.) was our companion from the channel to the shores of America. Flocks of this bird were always about our ship, chiefly in that part of the sea, which being cut by the ship, forms a smooth surface, where they frequently seem to settle, though always on the wing. They pick up or examine every thing that falls accidentally from the ship, or is thrown over board: little fish seem to be their chief food; in day time they are silent, in the dark clamorous; they are reputed to forebode a storm, for which reason the sailors disliking their company, complimented them with the name of witches; but they are as frequent in fair weather, without a storm following their appearance. To me it appeared as if they stayed sometimes half an hour and longer under the waves, and the sailors assured me they did. They look like swallows, and like them they skim sometimes on the water.

The Shearwater (Procellaria Puffinus, Linn.) is another sea-bird, which we saw every where on our voyage, from the channel to the American coasts; it has much the appearance and size of the dark-grey Sea-gull, or of a Duck; it has a brown back, and commonly a white ring round its neck, and a peculiar slow way of flying. We plainly saw some of these birds feed on fish.

The Tropic bird (Phaëton æthereus, Linn.) has very much the shape of a gull, but two very long feathers, which it has in its tail, distinguish it enough from any other bird; its flight is often exceedingly high: the first of this kind we met, was at about forty deg. north lat. and forty-nine or fifty deg. west long. from London.

Common Gulls (Larus canus, Linn.) we saw, when we were opposite the Land’s End, the most westerly cape of England, and when according to our reckoning we were opposite Ireland.

Terns (Sterna hirundo, Linn.) though of a somewhat darker colour than the common ones, we found after the forty-first deg. of north lat. and forty-seventh deg. west long. from London, very plentifully, and sometimes in flocks of some hundreds; sometimes they settled, as if tired, on our ship.

Within the American gulph we discovered a sea-bird at a little distance from the ship, which the sailors called a Sea-hen.

Land-birds are now and then seen at sea, and sometimes at a good distance from any land, so that it is often difficult, to account for their appearance in so uncommon a place. August the 18th. we saw a bird which settled on our ship, and was perfectly like the great Titmouse, (Parus major, Linn.) upon an attempt to catch it, it got behind the sails, and could never be caught.

September the 1st. We observed some Land-birds flying about our ship, which we took for Sand Martins (Hirundo riparia, Linn.) sometimes they settled on our ship, or on the sails; they were of a greyish brown colour on their back, their breast white, and the tail somewhat furcated; a heavy shower of rain drove them afterwards away, September the 2d. a Swallow fluttered about the ship, and sometimes it settled on the mast; it seemed to be very tired; several times it approached our cabin windows, as if it was willing to take shelter there. These cases happened about forty deg. north lat. and between forty-seven and forty-nine deg. west long. from London, and also about twenty deg. long. or more than nine hundred and twenty sea miles from any land whatsoever.

September the 10th. within the American gulph a large bird, which we took for an Owl, and likewise a little bird settled on our sails.

September the 12th. a Wood-pecker settled on our rigging: its back was of a speckled grey, and it seemed extremely fatigued. And another land-bird of the passerine class, endeavoured to take shelter and rest on our ship.

Before I entirely take leave of the sea, I will communicate my observations on two curious phœnomena.

In the channel and in the ocean we saw at night time, sparks of fire, as if flowing on the water, especially where it was agitated, sometimes one single spark swam for the space of more than one minute on the ocean before it vanished. The sailors observed them commonly to appear during, and after a storm from the north, and that often the sea is as if it were full of fire, and that some such shining sparks would likewise stick to the masts and sails.

Sometimes this light had not the appearance of sparks, but looked rather like the phosphorescence of putrid wood.

The Thames-water which made our provision of fresh water, is reputed to be the best of any. It not only settled in the oak casks it is kept in, but becomes in a little time stinking, when stopped up; however this nauseous smell it soon looses, after being filled into large stone juggs, and exposed to the open fresh air for two or three hours together. Often the vapours arising from a cask which has been kept close and stopped up for a great while take fire, if a candle is held near them when the cask is opened, and the Thames water is thought to have more of this quality than any other; though I was told that this even happened with any other water in the same circumstances.

Now I can resume my narrative, and therefore observe that we afterwards sailed on the river with a fair wind, pretty late at night. In the dawn of the evening we passed by Newcastle, a little town on the western shore of the river Delaware. It was already so dark, that we could hardly know it, but by the light which appeared through some of the windows. The Dutch are said to have been the first founders of this place, which is therefore reckoned the most ancient in the country, even more ancient than Philadelphia. But its trade can by no means be compared with the Philadelphia trade, though its situation has more advantages in several respects; one of which is, that the river seldom freezes before it, and consequently ships can come in and go out at any time. But near Philadelphia it is almost every winter covered with ice, so that navigation is interrupted for some weeks together. But the country about Philadelphia and farther up, being highly cultivated, and the people bringing all their goods to that place, Newcastle must always be inferior to it.

I mentioned, that the Dutch laid the foundations of this town. This happened at the time, when this country was as yet subject to Sweden. But the Dutch crept in, and intended by degrees to dispossess the Swedes, as a people who had taken possession of their property. They succeeded in their attempt; for the Swedes not being able to bear with this encroachment, came to a war, in which the Dutch got the better. But they did not enjoy the fruits of their victory long: for a few years after, the English came and deprived them of their acquisition, and have ever since continued in the undisturbed possession of the country. Somewhat later at night we cast anchor, the pilot not venturing to carry the ship up the river in the dark, several sands being in the way.

September 15th. In the dawn of the morning we weighed anchor, and continued our voyage up the river. The country was inhabited almost every where on both sides. The farm-houses were however pretty far asunder. About eight o’clock in the morning we sailed by the little town of Chester, on the western side of the river. In this town, our mate, who was born in Philadelphia, shewed me the places, which the Swedes still inhabit.