Page:A Voyage of Discovery and Research in the Southern and Antarctic Regions Vol 2.djvu/230

202 our researches so much beyond our predecessors, we had been singularly favoured.

Having thrown overboard a cask containing a brief sketch of our proceedings, which may at a future day be met with and help to throw some light on the winds and currents which prevail in these regions, we made sail along the barrier to the eastward; as we came to the lower part of it, which I have already noticed, we perceived from our mast-heads that it gradually rose to the southward, presenting the appearance of mountains of great height perfectly covered with snow, but with a varied and undulating outline, which the barrier itself could not have assumed; still there is so much uncertainty attending the appearance of land, when seen at any considerable distance, that although I, in common with nearly all my companions, feel assured that the presence of land there amounts almost to a certainty, yet I am unwilling to hazard the possibility of being mistaken on a point of so much interest, or the chance of some future navigator under more favourable circumstances proving that ours were only visionary mountains. The appearance of hummocky ridges and different shades, such as would be produced by an irregular white surface, and its mountainous elevation, were our chief grounds for believing it to be land, for not the smallest patch of cliff or rock could be seen protruding on any part of the space of about thirty