13 September: At six o’clock, 5°R [43.3°F, 6.3°C]. At noon we took a reading of the sun’s altitude with the sextant and an artificial horizon and obtained 72°25'. At two o’clock the needle oscillated 130 times in ten minutes. At seven o’clock Mr. Bodmer returned from his excursion with a badly injured hand. At Richmond (see page 65) he had wanted to go hunting with a young doctor early in the morning before breakfast because there were many wild doves in the vicinity, and he actually shot one of them. But the powder chamber of the left barrel of the freshly cleaned gun (presumably the wadding on the charge had moved forward) burst and damaged Mr. Bodmer’s hand. His thumb (the ball of the thumb) was [Page 1:94]completely torn open and his hand burned black. The young doctor bandaged him and brought him back to Bethlehem in the evening.