Page:A Voyage of Discovery and Research in the Southern and Antarctic Regions Vol 1.djvu/365

] of the night; the ships' bows and rigging being thickly encrusted with ice, and so much swell as to endanger the lives of the brave fellows that were engaged for nearly two hours, slung over the bows, up to their necks in water at every plunge the ship took, before they could accomplish it; and this with the thermometer at twelve degrees below freezing. We made all sail at daylight along the pack edge to the north, with a light breeze from the westward; and at noon were in lat. 68° 27′ S., long. 167° 42′ E., the dip 85° 19′, and variation 34° 32′ E. We had no soundings with four hundred fathoms line, the temperature at that depth 36°; the surface 28° 2′, and the air 27°. We met with fewer streams of ice off the pack, and were favoured with very fine weather, the thermometer having risen to a more comfortable temperature.

At 5 land was seen, bearing N. 62° W., of which before dark we could clearly distinguish the features. It had the appearance of two islands nearly joining, and the whole subtended an angle of seventeen degrees, of great height, and very distant: the centre of the northern island terminated in a high peak. I named it Russell Peak. The southernmost I named Smyth Island, after my friend Captain William Henry Smyth, of the Royal Navy, President of the Royal Astronomical Society. Although I believe these islands to form a part of the group discovered by Balleny in February 1839, yet it is not improbable they may prove to be the tops of the mountains of a more extensive land.

We stood towards the land, passing through