Nor was the benefit confined to the eighteen or twenty
individuals whose want of scholarship brought them to the school-table,
but extended itself to the rest of the ship's company, making the whole
lower-deck such a scene of quiet rational occupation as I never before
saw on board a ship. And I do not speak lightly when I express my
thorough persuasion, that to the moral effects thus produced upon the
minds of the men, were owing, in a very high degree, the constant yet
sober cheerfulness, the uninterrupted good order, and even, in some
measure, the extraordinary state of health which prevailed among us
during this winter.
The extreme facility with which sounds are heard at a considerable
distance in severely cold weather, has often been a subject of remark;
but a circumstance occurred at Port Bowen which deserves to be noticed,
as affording a sort of measure of this facility, or, at least, conveying
to others some definite idea of the fact. Lieutenant Foster having
occasion to send a man from the observatory to the opposite shore of the
harbour, a measured distance of 6696 feet, or about one statute mile and
two tenths, in order to fix a meridian mark, had placed a second person
half way between, to repeat his directions; but he found, on trial, that
this precaution was unnecessary, as he could, without difficulty, keep
up a conversation with the man at the distant station.
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