I90I] FOG 87 



sea the consequences would have been exceedingly unpleasant. 

 We must inevitably have lost much of our large deck cargo : 

 the masses of wood on the superstructure would have been in 

 great danger, whilst all our sheep and possibly many of the 

 dogs would have been drowned. 



As the days went by and we approached the Antarctic 

 Circle, we felt how exceptionally fortunate we were in the 

 continuance of fine weather. Although on the 28th the wind 

 failed us and we were obliged to raise steam, on the 29th we 

 were again favoured by a fresh breeze, and fell back once more 

 on our policy of using the sails and saving the coal. 



On the 31st we were in lat. 61 S., the temperature of both 

 sea and air had fallen to 39°, and we had daylight throughout 

 the twenty-four hours ; but we now fell in with one of the 

 commonest evils in these latitudes, a thick fog, and as we did 

 not know how soon we might come upon icebergs, a very sharp 

 ' look-out ' was necessary. 



The fog remained with us until the afternoon of January 2, 

 occasionally lifting for a few hours, but again descending like a 

 thick pall, and giving us at least one reason for being resigned 

 to our very limited speed of five knots. A fact that adds to 

 the depressing effect of a fog is that one's friendly companions 

 the sea birds disappear, and one realises a curious sense of 

 desertion as one peers into the unbroken grey, wondering 

 when some monster iceberg will loom up, and prepared for 

 instant action to avoid collision with it. 



On the afternoon of the 2nd the weather cleared, and 

 shortly after we sighted our first iceberg in lat. 65^ S. Other 

 bergs soon rose above our horizon, and in the evening we 

 counted seventeen about us, none more than four or five 

 hundred yards in length, and although generally of a tabular 

 shape, they were not more than 90 or 100 feet in height. 



The nature and origin of the southern iceberg have always 

 been a subject of some mystery. In the Northern Hemi- 

 sphere, where glaciers push down into the sea, fragments, 

 often of considerable size, become detached and are carried 

 by currents to decay in milder climates. 



