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page 29 ---Albanian
coast---meteorology
In this latitude, where we saw the islands of Merlera and Corfu to the south-east, in a grey mist,
and nearer to us the mountain ridge of the  island of Fano and the Montagne di Cimara, on the coast of Albania,
which joins the higher chain of Pegola, the temperature remained
higher the whole day than we had hitherto observed it. The thermometer
stood in the morning, in the air, at 9° 50', R.; in the water, 10°
at noon, in the air, 11° 75'; in the evening, in the air, 10°
in the water, 11°75'. But the night during which we were in the gulf
of Tarento, was
again, however, remarkably cold. The horizon was enveloped in dark clouds;
and we had frequent lightnings, succeeded by long peals of thunder. The
sea in the gulf of Tarento is often stormy and very dangerous,
particularly for small coasting vessels.
In the night of the 25th we doubled Capo Spartivento,
the most southerly promontory of Italy,
and with a fresh breeze from E.S.E. directed our course towards Malta. Thus our voyage through the Adriatic sea was happily completed; and we left behind us those countries in which,
above all others, ancient and modern history are blended together.
The awfully majestic Etna soon came in sight: its snow-crowned summits were veiled in a thick fog.
Soon after we beheld, on the Sicilian  coast, about ten
miles to the north of us, the renowned Syracuse,
the birthplace of Theocritus and Archimedes.
page 30 ---wildlife---
With the assistance of our telescopes, we distinguished the walls and
towers on the east side of the city, and the roofs of several of the principal
buildings, which, indeed, seem to retain but little of the splendour of
the opulent Syracuse,
which Cicero describes as one of the most beautiful cities of antiquity.
Recollections of the noble-minded Timoleon,-- of the tyrant Dionysius,--
of the grandeur and magnificence which Syracuse attained after
the conquest of its rival Agrigentum,
strike upon the mind of the observer.
The sea in this latitude, as well as in the gulf of Tarento,
is of a light-green colour, which is principally owing to its inferior
depth. As this colour changes according as the rays of the sun fall, it
is hardly possible accurately to determine the various degrees of the
blue, green, and grey colour; for the sea appears in the same place of
a much brighter hue when it is strongly illuminated by the sun, than when
the horizon is overspread with dark clouds. It is in this place also that
we first discovered the phosphorescence of the sea. It was, however, much
fainter and more dispersed than we afterwards noticed it on the coasts of Spain,
at Gibraltar,
and in the ocean, and seemed to arise chiefly from minute mollusca.
 
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