308 THE VOYAGE OF THE ' FRAM " 



Edward Island and the Crozet Islands (about lat.47° S.) 

 the temperature fell. Towards morning I remarked to 

 someone: " The temperature of the water is falling as if 

 we were getting near the ice." On the forenoon of the 

 same day we sailed past a very small berg ; the tempera- 

 ture again rose to the normal, and we met no more ice 

 until Christmas Eve. 



On Saturday, JNIarch 4, the day before we met that 

 large collection of bergs, the temperature fell pretty 

 rapidly from 33-9° F. to 32'5° F. We had not then seen 

 ice for nearly twenty-four hours. At the same time 

 the colour of the water became unusually green, and it 

 is possible that we had come into a cold current. The 

 temperature remained as low as this till Sunday morn- 

 ing, when at 8 a.m. it rose to 327° F. ; at 12 noon, 

 close to a berg, to 32*9° F., and a mile to lee of it, to 

 33° F. It continued to rise, and at 4 p.m., when the 

 bergs were thickest, it was 33*4° F.; at 8 p.m. 33*6° F., 

 and at midnight 338° F. If there had been a fog, we 

 should certainly have thought we were leaving the ice 

 instead of approaching it; it is very curious, too, that 

 the temperature of the w^ater should not be more constant 

 in the presence of such a great quantity of ice ; but, as 

 I have said, it may have been a current. 



In the course of the week following JNIarch 5 the 

 bergs became rarer, but the same kind of weather pre- 

 vailed. Our speed was irreproachable, and in one day's 

 work (from noon to noon) we covered a distance of 



