Page:The Botany of the Antarctic Voyage.djvu/18

x the coast (Cockburn's Island), we landed upon it. The vegetable productions only amounted to twenty Cryptogamic species, three of them Seaweeds. Unable, after a series of fruitless efforts, to penetrate farther than 65°, and after having been more or less entangled in the ice for thirty-seven days, Sir James Ross finally bore up, and when, with great difficulty, the ships had been extricated from the pack-ice, we commenced tracing its edge to the eastward. A succession of easterly gales rendered the progress in the advancing season tedious, most uncomfortable, and hazardous. At last however, on the 22nd of February 1843, the pack was lost sight of, trending to the south-west. On the 28th the Antarctic Circle was recrossed, and in spite of the rapidly shortening days, dark nights, and continual bad weather (for throughout the month of February, corresponding to an English August, only one day elapsed without snow), the Commander persevered in holding a southerly course. On Sunday the 5th of March, the weather being very thick, with snow-squalls, white petrels were seen, a bird whose appearance affords a sure indication of the proximity of pack-ice, and on the afternoon of the same day a heavy pack was descried, only a few yards ahead, with a terrific surf beating on it. The ice here was such as not to allow of being "taken" (or entered), even under the most favourable circumstances, and the ships were accordingly put about in lat. 71° 30' S., long. 15° W.

The thickness of the weather made it impossible to ascertain the course and position of the pack, and the Northward Voyage was commenced under violent N.E. equinoctial gales. Beating to the northward, the ice occurred on both tacks, and the vessels were found to be in a bight of the pack, with the ocean loaded with bergs, and while the continued snow-squalls prevented the possibility of seeing any object ahead, the heavy seas and snow-laden state of the rigging rendered all human exertions ineffectual. From that date till the 11th of March, matters remained much the same, the ships beating to the northward with as much press of sail as could be exposed, trusting to Providence alone for guidance among the bergs. On the 19th the position assigned to Bouvet's or Circumcision Island was gained, but the weather rendered all endeavours, for three days, to discover land in this place of no avail. Both ships had a narrow escape of running foul of an iceberg, over which the sea was breaking, eighty feet high. The "Erebus," passing to windward, struck one of the floating masses from it; and the "Terror," to windward of her consort, did not discover the danger till almost too late,