Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 6.djvu/291

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285
F. G. Young.
285

JOURNAL OF A VOYAGE TO N. W. AMERICA. 285 us that the weather did not allow us to visit them & obtain a little intelligence from home. 20 January. To-day I had the opportunity of dissect- ing an albatross of which I made a very carefull dissec- tion. The cornea is very convex & the iris is of a deap brown colour. Tongue small. The larnyx is double & furnished near the sternum with two cartilaginous cap- sules. Two muscles arise from the sternum & go to the upper part of the windpipe. The sesophagus is exceedingly capacious, but is not very muscular ; & the spinal nerves supply it with abundant ramifications. The upper part of the gullet is furnished with numerous papillae closely set and pointing towards the stomach. These papillae probably agree in structure & use with those of the turtle; The first stomach is merely a continuation of the sesoph- agus & is small and very little muscular. The gizzard is small and is not very grandular, & is the least muscular I ever saw. The intestines are simple, but of many con- volutions. The liver was very large & two lobed ; its upper part contained a small depression for receiving the apex of the heart. Gall bladder very large & filled with a dark coloured bile; its ducts were very distinctly seen going to the duodenum. The pancreas was large & its ducts equally evident with those of the gall bladder. 25 January. From the greenish-muddy appearance of the water we suspected the vicinity of some land, & on sounding we found bottom in 75 fathoms. Next day we saw the island of Beuchene [?] about 25 miles distant, so that we could form no idea of its appearance as to vegeta- tion. This muddy appearance of the water continued till we were in 43 S. While in sounding we saw many in- dividuals of the genus Aptenodytes. Much has been said of the stormy weather which pre- vails of[f] Cape Horn ; we, however, experienced very