Page:A Voyage of Discovery and Research in the Southern and Antarctic Regions Vol 1.djvu/304

212 perhaps future observation may supply; for it is desirable to know where they are not to be found as well as where they are, that valuable time may not be thrown away by those who go in pursuit of them.

On reaching the clear water, we found a short irregular sea, in which the ships pitched heavily under the easiest sail we could prevail on ourselves to carry, which seemed to indicate a change of tide to windward. As we pursued our way along the pack edge to the southward, we saw a great many of the beautiful snowy petrel, and some penguins. The temperature of the air varied only one degree during the twenty-four hours, from 25° to 26°, which was sufficiently low to freeze into ice the sprays that fell on board the ship, and soon accumulated such a load about our bows as to keep the watch continually at work clearing it away, and beating it off the running ropes. At noon we had increased the dip to 88° 33′, so that the magnetic pole was now only one hundred and seventy-four miles from us in a W. by S. (true) bearing. Mount Melbourne bore W. by N. eighty miles.

In the afternoon, as we got further from the pack, the uneasy irregular sea subsided, and the wind becoming more westerly enabled us to stand direct for the east extreme of the "land blink," which bore S.W. by S. (true) from us; and at this time some strong indications of land appeared, which we all hoped would prove a "Cape Flyaway," as many others had done before. As we increased our distance from the pack, the temperature of the