196 THE VOYAGE OF THE 'DISCOVERY' [Mar. 



shelter we could only have raised steam with difficulty and 

 after the lapse of many hours. If driven off by such a gale, 

 should we be able to get back? It seemed doubtful, and 

 meanwhile it would certainly be unsafe to send a large party 

 away from the ship, because with the ship adrift it was obvious 

 that most of them would be needed. If, on the other hand, 

 the fates were going to allow us to remain in this spot, there 

 was much to be done in preparing for the winter ; especially 

 it was desirable that the engines should be taken to pieces and 

 the steam joints be broken before the severer cold came upon 

 us ; but in our present position we dared not attempt such 

 work. One of the most annoying circumstances was that until 

 we had a solid sheet of ice about us we could not set up our 

 meteorological screen, nor communicate regularly with the 

 magnetic huts, nor, in fact, properly carry out any of the 

 routine scientific work which was such an important object of 

 the expedition. 



Our proposed winter station was so far beyond that of any 

 former expedition that, as I have already pointed out, we had 

 nothing to guide us as to what the winter climate might be, 

 and our astonishment at the prolonged open conditions left us 

 almost in doubt as to whether the sea was ever going to freeze 

 over satisfactorily. The breaking away of the old ice had 

 ceased, and the open water was now at its maximum for the 

 season ; as will be seen from the chart, it ran from the decayed 

 glacier tongue, which we had visited on February 8, to the 

 S.E., circling about Cape Armitage with a radius of four or five 

 miles, and forming a deep bay to the eastward of the peninsula. 

 The ice-edge which limited the open water could be seen very 

 distinctly from the hills in the vicinity of the ship — a long, 

 irregular ribbon of white, gradually circling round, the edge 

 itself standing in some places two or three feet and in others 

 ten or fifteen feet above the sea level, and showing that what 

 remained was ice of a different character from that which had 

 broken away, and constituted the limit of a more ancient 

 ice-sheet. 



At this time I was anxious to make one more sledging 



