A REPORTED ISLAND 21 



The floes were not apart but barely touching the edges, which 

 were hard pressed yesterday; the wind still holds from N.W., 

 but lighter. Gran, Oates, and Bowers went on ski towards a 

 reported island about which there had been some difference of 

 opinion. I felt certain it was a berg, and it proved to be so; 

 only of a very curious dome shape with very low cliffs all 

 about. 



Fires were ordered for 12, and at 11.30 we started steaming 

 with plain sail set. We made, and are making fair progress on 

 the whole, but it is very uneven. We escaped from the heavy 

 floes about us into much thinner pack, then through two water 

 holes, then back to the thinner pack consisting of thin floes of 

 large area fairly easily broken. All went well till we struck 

 heavy floes again, then for half an hour we stopped dead. Then 

 on again, and since alternately bad and good — that is, thin young 

 floes and hoary older ones, occasionally a pressed up berg, very 

 heavy. 



The best news of yesterday was that we drifted 15 miles to 

 the S.E., so that we have not really stopped our progress at all, 

 though it has, of course, been pretty slow. 



I really don't know what to think of the pack, or when to 

 hope for open water. 



We tried Atkinson's blubber stove this afternoon with great 

 success. The interior of the stove holds a pipe in a single coil 

 pierced with holes on the under side. These holes drip oil on 

 to an asbestos burner. The blubber is placed in a tank suitably 

 built around the chimney; the overflow of oil from this tank 

 leads to the feed pipe in the stove, with a cock to regulate the 

 flow. A very simple device, but as has been shown a very effec- 

 tive one; the stove gives great heat, but, of course, some blubber 

 smell. However, with such stoves in the south one would never 

 lack cooked food or warm hut. 



Discussed with Wright the fact that the hummocks on sea 

 ice always yield fresh water. We agreed that the brine must 

 simply run down out of the ice. It will be interesting to bring 

 up a piece of sea ice and watch this process. But the fact 

 itself is interesting as showing that the process producing the 

 hummock is really producing fresh water. It may also be 

 noted as phenom.enon which makes all the difference to the ice 

 navigator.^ 



