76 ICE AND ICEBERGS. L 1839. 



of importance had been made. The weather had proved un- 

 favorable, and on penetrating as far south as the sixty-sixth 

 degree of southern latitude, Captain Wilkes found himself 

 surrounded on all sides by innumerable icebergs and field ice, 

 and was therefore obliged to retrace his course. While he 

 was absent from Orange Harbor, he visited the South Shet- 

 lands and Palmer's Land, but was only able to verify the 

 discoveries of former navigators. 



Captain Hudson encountered the first icebergs on the 11th 

 of March, in latitude 63° 30' 8. and 80° W. longitude* 

 The Flying Fish separated from the Peacock in a gale, in 

 the early part of the cruise, but fell in with her again before 

 its termination. Captain Hudson ascended a little above the 

 sixty-eighth degree of southern latitude, and Lieutenant 

 Walker went as high as the seventieth degree, where his 

 further progress was impeded by impassable barriers of ice. 

 Both vessels came near being hemmed in by these frozen 

 bulwarks. The Flying Fish was once rescued from a most 

 perilous position by a fortunate breeze, and the Peacock, after 

 being enveloped for six days, from the 19th to the 25th of 

 March, in ice and icebergs, was with great difficulty worked 

 out into the open sea, through a dense fog, by carrying on all 

 her canvas. The decks and ri^srino- of the vessels were coated 

 with ice, and everything was dark, dreary and cheerless. If 

 there was a pause in the howling of the wind, it seemed to 

 bellow with increased fury when it again swept above the 

 wintry waste. If the leaden-colored clouds parted over head, 

 and the beautiful tints of blue sky were reflected in the water, 

 they could scarcely be admired, before the heavens were once 

 more overshadowed by that black and dismal pall which al- 

 most shut out the light of day. 



As if to compensate for all this dreariness and gloom, sev- 

 eral splendid exhibitions of the aurora australist were wit- 



* In the South Pacific, the Polar currents being very little interrupted by land, 

 deviate less from their general course than those in the northern hemisphere, 

 ind, consequently, carry icebergs nearer to the tropics than is usual north oi" the 

 Equator. 



"|" The aurora austral is is the phenomenon in the southern hemisphere corre- 

 sponding to the aurora borealis in the northern. 



