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[[preprinted]] TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 19, 1865. [[/preprinted]]

Morning.  Light winds and variable.  The carpenter sets to work on a chest for the two odd cans I have with me.  Get a number of interesting specimens of Holothurians and Ascidians, probably of the genus Pelonea.  Get to work cataloguing, the alcoholic specimens on hand preparatory to putting them in the keg. Finish this and look up some mollusks.  A little bird Ageothus linaria, lights on the rail for a short time.  Saw the N E point of St. Lawrence Island this morning. We were just half way to Emma Harbor at noon.  Capt, Scammon not very well.  K. carried off the sail to the dingy. 

[[preprinted]] WEDNESDAY 20 [[/preprinted]]

Morning.  Cold and windy, wind dead ahead.  Not much encouraging in the prospect.  Run down to the east of St Lawrence Island before the wind and as a consequence rolls like thunder.  Go below and read up in Danas mineralogy.  The angulas system is not so difficult to comprehend as one would suppose.  In the afternoon, set to and write a long letter to father.  I must write up some of my letters or I shall have a tough job when we get back.  Capt. Scammon not so well as he has been.  Bottom so far has been all one soft clayey sandy mud. 

[[preprinted]] THURSDAY 21 [[/preprinted]]

Day clear and cold.  S E point of St. Lawrence Island in sight.  Get to work at a chart of part of Behring Sea extending from St. Michaels Norton Sound across to Emma Harbor, including St Lawrence Island and north two degrees so as to include the ground over which we have been sounding and to  show its adaptability to be a base for a cable.  Get it nearly done.  Write some long letters and read the account of the melancholy death of Behring the great explorer of this region who died of scurvy on one of the Aleutian Islands.  Pass S W Cape about 8 oclock and steer straight for Emma Harbor which we shall probably reach tomorrow. 

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[[preprinted]] FRIDAY SEPTEMBER 22, 1865 [[/preprinted]]

Morning, wind brisk but weather thick and misty.  The Capes of [[Yschutchni?; Tschutni?]] Nose at the opening of Plover Bay are just visible through the fog.  But the weather is so thick & the wind freshening that the vessel is kept off for safety and we go off South West.  The wind shifts and we go off in a fog roiling like blazes.  Turn in nearly all day read a little and sleep a little, but get little rest so rough that we can't read write sit down or lie down with any kind of comfort. & so continues.
             [[preprinted]] SATURDAY 23 [[/preprinted]]

Same as yesterday only more so.  Keep a drifting to the SW and are about 80 miles away from our port which is excessively discouraging as we were within an hours sail of it yesterday morning, Make myself a cap out of [[besum?]] rat a kind of muskrat, flannel and an old felt hat.  Succeed quite well.  Break down our table with rolling and eat lunch in our laps.  Clears off and abates somewhat towards evening.  Spend a good part of the day in the cabin with Capt. Scammon.

              SUNDAY 24

Morning clear and pleasant.  Wind dead ahead.  No musters.  Spend all morning painting the union for a revenue ensign,the largest ever raised on this coast.  Spend part of the afternoon trimming my mittens with white fox skin which is the meanest fur I ever saw.  Get hold of the Virginians, and read part of the afternoon.  Throw over my net but catch only small crustaceans, Entomostracans, and the  moulted feathers of the gigantic fulmar.  In the evening write and study a little on the Telegraph alphabet, worse than Russian.