Page:A Voyage of Discovery and Research in the Southern and Antarctic Regions Vol 1.djvu/260

174 our situation critical and anxious. As we stood away from the pack the temperature of the sea rose from 28° to 30° at the distance of seven or eight miles; when, having got into a much clearer space, we kept the ship under easy sail all the next day, waiting for more favourable weather. Several whales, a few seals, and many white petrel, were seen during the day, also three penguins.

Towards midnight the barometer began to rise, and other indications of the weather improving, we wore round and stood to the southward; we carried all sail, passing through several narrow streams of heavy ice, formed of the fragments of broken-up bergs, which rendered the greatest vigilance necessary during the thick snow-showers that passed over us in quick succession, and were sometimes of long continuance; nor was it until the afternoon that the clear blue sky was again seen and the sun shone forth in all its splendour,—the numerous bergs, of strange and curious forms, reflecting its brilliant rays in every beautiful variety of colour, and forming, as our ships pursued their devious way amongst them, a scene of much interest and grandeur.

At noon we were in lat. 65° 22′ S., long. 172° 42′ E.; the magnetic dip 81° 40′, variation 25° 1′. By a remarkable, and of course in some degree accidental coincidence, exactly the same dip and variation were signalled from both ships.

The power of the sun's radiation was measured at 9, by means of a thermometer whose bulb