Page:A Voyage of Discovery and Research in the Southern and Antarctic Regions Vol 2.djvu/390

348 filled with a glacier, between Cape Foster and Cape Lockyer, and another between Cape Lockyer and the Snow Hill cliffs: this latter cannot be more than five or six miles from the head of Admiralty Inlet. As it was impossible to continue the examination of the land to the westward, or to make any way to the southward, I resolved to lose no more time in this perplexing navigation, but endeavour to trace the land ice to the south-eastward as far as it should lead us; in order to do this it was necessary to extricate ourselves from the loose ice which had now packed so closely in amongst the bergs, that we could see no way out, and the temperature falling to 23° at night, began to connect them into extensive floes, threatening to detain us in our present awkward position for the winter.

At noon, in latitude 64° 39′ S., longitude 57° 24′ W., magnetic dip 63° 20′ S., and variation 23° E., we sounded in one hundred and twenty fathoms, on green mud, close to the edge of the land ice, on which I obtained observations in the evening. On examining the state of the ice to the eastward, we found every channel between the bergs so closed up by large floes, as effectually to prevent our egress: we were therefore obliged to keep the ships sailing to and fro in a small hole of water between the bergs and the land the whole of this and the following day, in the course of which we were frequently beset for a few hours, and being carried by the spring tides with great force amongst the bergs, we at times sustained severe shocks.