Page:A Voyage of Discovery and Research in the Southern and Antarctic Regions Vol 1.djvu/347

] of a party of men to cut a passage with saws. The whole night was passed in this fatiguing work, and it was not until ten o'clock the next morning that we regained the clear water, and were enabled to bear away to the northward.

Notwithstanding my anxious wish to keep close along the shore, that we might complete the examination of that portion of the land which we had but imperfectly seen on our way to the southward, yet we were obliged to stand off so far to the eastward to prevent getting entangled in the ice, and the weather not proving favourable for our purpose, we found it impossible to distinguish the coast line between Cape Gauss and a fine headland to the south of Mount Melbourne, which I called Cape Washington after my friend and brother officer of that name, for several years the able Secretary of the Royal Geographical Society, and a zealous promoter of geographical research. The continuity of the land and its leading features were however clearly ascertained: it is of less elevation than any other part of Victoria Land, and the mountainous ridges appeared to recede much farther from the coast. An island or a large berg with much earth and rocks upon it, which was passed in the afternoon, is marked on the chart "Doubtful Island," as it was quite impossible to know which it really was. Several stars were observed about midnight, the first we had seen since entering the pack, and warning us of the approach of the winter.