If the tides are regulated by the moon, it is high-water by the shore at this place on the days of the new and full moon, about four o'clock. The perpendicular rise and fall is very inconsiderable, not exceeding four feet at most. In Christmas Sound it is high-water at half past two o'clock on the days of the full and change, and Mr Wales observed it to rise and fall on a perpendicular three feet six inches; but this was during the neap tides, consequently the spring tides must rise higher. To give such an account of the tides and currents on these coasts as navigators might depend on, would require a multitude of observations, and in different places, the making of which would be a work of time. I confess myself unprovided with materials for such a task; and believe that the less I say on this subject the fewer mistakes I shall make. But I think I have been able to observe, that in Strait Le Maire the southerly tide or current, be it flood or ebb, begins to act on the days of new and full moon about four o'clock, which remark may be of use to ships who pass the strait.
Were I bound round Cape Horn to the west, and not in want of wood or water, or any other thing that might make it necessary to put into port, I would not come near the land at all. For by keeping out at sea you avoid the currents, which, I am satisfied, lose their force at ten or twelve leagues from land; and at a greater distance, there is none.
During the time we were upon the coast we had more calms than storms, and the winds so variable, that I question if a passage might not have been made from east to west in as short a time as from west to east; nor did we experience any cold weather. The mercury in the thermometer at noon was never below 46°; and while we lay in Christmas Sound it was generally above temperate. At this place the variation was 23° 30' E.; a few leagues to the S. W. of Strait Le Maire it was 24°; and at anchor, within New Year's Isles, it was 24° 20' E.
These isles are, in general, so unlike Staten Land, especially the one on which we landed, that it deserves a particular description. It shews a surface of equal height, and elevated about thirty or forty feet above the sea, from which it is defended by a rocky coast. The inner part of the isle is covered with a sort of sword-grass, very green, and of a great length. It grows on little hillocks of two or three feet in diameter, and as many or more in height, in large tufts, which seemed to be composed of the roots of the plant matted together. Among these hillocks are a vast number of paths made by sea-bears and penguins, by which they retire into the centre of the isle. It is, nevertheless, exceedingly bad travelling; for these paths are so dirty that one is sometimes up to the knees in mire. Besides this plant, there are a few other grasses, a kind of heath, and some celery. The whole surface is moist and wet, and on the coast are several small streams of water. The sword-grass, as I call it, seems to be the same that grows in Falkland Isles, described by Bougainville as a kind of _gladiolus_, or rather a species of _gramen_[9] and named by Pernety corn-flags.