160 VOYAGE TO THE POLAE SEA. September 



necessary to guard against the ships becoming thus 

 frozen in and unable to move should the ice open. 



The floe to which we were secured, during this 

 and the following day, was situated in the main 

 channel between the head of Dobbin Bay and Wash- 

 ington Irving Island, and drifted with the pack to 

 the north or south according to the tide ; no water- 

 channel ever opening near us, although there were a 

 few disconnected pools in sight in the offing. 



On the 1st of September towards the end of the 

 flood-tide, during calm weather, we were again able to 

 advance, and succeeded in reaching some grounded 

 icebergs near Cape Hawks — probably the same which 

 were there the previous year. 



I fully expected that with the ebb-tide the ice 

 would be carried out of the channel between Washing- 

 ton Irving Island and the main, but it did not move 

 sufficiently to enable us to proceed ; indeed, we had 

 great difficulty in communicating with the shore, only 

 a quarter of a mile distant, by means of a boat, in con- 

 sequence of the closeness of the ice. Whenever able to 

 do so we gradually embarked the depot of provisions 

 left there last year ; but a boat and some biscuit still 

 remain. If visited during the summer these will be 

 found on the northern shore of a small bay a mile and-a- 

 half distant from Cape Hawks and about a quarter of a 

 mile from the east point of the bay. During the 

 winter when covered by snow it would be very difficult 

 for a stranger to find the locality — unless, indeed, the 

 pole marking it remains up. 



The mean height of the tabular iceberg alongside 

 which the ships were secured was between twenty-four 



