of Captain Ross in the Southern Ocean. 289 
have found any place of security for the ships, we might have 
travelled this short distance over the land; but this proved to 
be utterly impracticable; and although our hopes of complete 
attainment have not been realized, it is some satisfaction to feel 
assured that we have approached the Pole more nearly, by 
some hundred miles, than any of our predecessors; and from 
the multitude of observations that have been made in both 
ships, and in so many different directions from it, its position 
can be determined with nearly as much accuracy as if we had 
actually reached the spot itself. 
It had ever been an object of anxious desire with us to find 
a harbour for the ships, so as to enable us to make simultaneous 
observations with the numerous observatories that would be 
at work on the important term-day of the 28th of February, 
as well as for other scientific purposes; but every part of the 
coast where indentations appeared, and where harbours on 
other shores usually occur, we found so perfectly filled with 
perennial ice, of many hundred feet in thickness, that all our 
endeavours to find a place of shelter for our vessels were quite 
unavailing. 
Having now completed all that it appeared to me possible 
to accomplish in so high a latitude, and at so advanced a 
period of the season, and desirous to obtain as much informa- 
tion as possible of the extent and form of the coast we had dis- 
covered, as also to guide in some measure our future opera- 
tions, I bore away, on the 18th February, for the north part 
of this land, and which, by favour of a strong southerly gale, 
we reached on the morning of the 21st. 
We again endeavoured to effect a landing on this part of 
the coast, and were again defeated in our attempt by the heavy 
pack, which extended for many miles from the shore, and ren- 
dered it impossible. 
For several days we continued to examine the coast to the 
westward, tracing the pack-edge along, until, on the 25th 
February, we found the land abruptly to terminate in latitude 
70° 40’ S. and longitude 165° E., trending considerably to the 
southward of west, and presenting to our view an immense 
space occupied by a dense pack, now so firmly cemented to- 
gether by the newly-formed ice, and so covered by recent 
