Page:A Voyage of Discovery and Research in the Southern and Antarctic Regions Vol 2.djvu/389

] satisfaction to find that we had passed through the chain of bergs into a more clear space, but with a great quantity of loose ice about, which we soon afterwards found to be rapidly closing; as we could not see to any distance, owing to the dense fog, we made fast to a large floe, at 6.20. : on the fog clearing away shortly before noon, we found ourselves completely beset by the close pack, and fast to the fixed land ice. At noon, in latitude 64° 44′ S., longitude 56° 53′ W., we sounded in one hundred and sixty-four fathoms, green sand; the nearest point of the land bearing north-west by north (true), distant thirteen miles. From the mast-head the land ice extended as far as we could see to the eastward, round by south to north-west.

During the remainder of this and the whole of the following day, we were stationary; and, as a light easterly wind with thick snow prevailed on the morning of the 11th, it was not until 10 that we cast off from the land ice; and, coasting along its edge to the westward, we passed again through the cluster of grounded bergs; and, having traced the ice in one unbroken line for nearly thirty miles, before midnight we found it to turn suddenly to the north, and join the icy cliffs at the foot of Snow Hill. Cape Foster, at the distance of eight leagues, formed the extreme point of land in sight, and the whole intervening space was one continuous sheet of fixed ice, in which many large bergs were enclosed. There is a bay or inlet,