The present opportunity was eagerly seized, for making several observations of the sun and moon.
Captain Cook was now nearly in the same longitude which is assigned to Cape Circumcision, and about ninety-five leagues to the south of the latitude in which it is said to lie.

At the same time the weather was so clear, that land might have been seen at the distance of fourteen or fifteen leagues.

He concluded it, therefore, to be very probable, that what Bouvet took for land was nothing but mountains of ice, surrounded by loose or field ice.

Our present navigators had naturally been led into a similar mistake.

The conjecture, that such ice as had lately been seen was joined to land, was a very plausible one, though not founded on fact.