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1861 July 20 Sat.

Refraction has been great all day.
This AM when on Whale Island the Land (Ex. Land) looked much higher & of bold front. [[erasure]] There [[/erasure]] Had I not been well acquainted with it usual or natural appearance I should have been much deceived with its character.  It did not look distorted in the least.  Suppose I had not seen this land before & that I should write a description of it as it appeared to-day, how greatly at fault would be my account of it from the real fact.  I followed with my spy the boat of Gardner[[?]] which I first saw some 5 miles S.W. of the place we assisted him to yesterday morn - occasionally I could see the boat distinctly - [[underlined]] even the green gunnel [[/underlined]] in contrast to the white paint] below - then the next moment the Boat would be indistinct so changeable was the medium (air) through which I was sighting.  The time I saw Gardiner was 4 Oclk P.M.  The reason of the lateness of his arriving at the place indicated was probably from the impossibility of launching his boat from the Island where he had left it till high or full tide.

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1861 July 20 Sat.

Much ice was all along the Coast on the S Side of the Bay.  Indeed I think G. will find a difficult job to get through - or even to Lupton Straits.  Sylvia Island looked breasted with 5 miles of "Pack".
As to refraction, I write of another incident.  After tea I proposed to Capt B. to try a few shots with my rifle.  Now Capt. B. is a good shot in common state of the weather for a [[underlined]] "hair-[[/underlined]] mark" at 100 feet.  A fact, but to-night so [[underlined]] peculiar [[/underlined]]  was the state of the air that he could not come nearer than to the edge of a white mark the size of a 25 cent piece.  At first he did not suspect the difficulty - at length it occurred to him what he had noticed before in his shooting in these N'n Regions - & then declared that I had with plot (?) design invited him to the shooting at that time.  I am well satisfied that the best marksmen (Capt B. is one of them) would make poor shots on such a day as this.