Page:A Voyage of Discovery and Research in the Southern and Antarctic Regions Vol 1.djvu/303

] success. Observations at noon placed us in lat. 74° 44′, long. 169 ° 30′, dip 87° 54′ S., var. 67° 13′, from which we deduced the place of the magnetic pole to be distant two hundred and forty-nine miles. We had penetrated the pack as far as the ice admitted to the westward by half-past eight in the evening, when we tacked and obtained observations by which we found we had approached so much nearer the Pole that the dip had increased to 88° 10′. We tried for soundings with three hundred fathoms line, but it did not reach the bottom. Mount Melbourne and Mount Monteagle were here seen to great advantage; the immense crater of the former, and the more pointed summit of the latter, rose high above the contiguous mountains; and they form two of the more remarkable objects of this most wonderful and magnificent mass of volcanic land.

Whilst struggling to get through the pack, we found it drifting, under the influence of the wind and current, rapidly to the northward, which seemed to encourage a hope, that, if defeated in our attempt to pass round its southern extremity, we might be able, at a later period of the season when more of the land-ice should have drifted away, to penetrate to the shore, and find some place wherein to secure the ships for the winter. For several days past we had seen very few whales, which was the more remarkable on account of the very great numbers we met with not more than sixty or seventy miles to the northward. There must be doubtless some cause for their absence from this spot, which