HISTORY OF THE ISLANDS 295 



during the stoppage the Americans, having run short of water, were supplied with 120 

 gallons from the 'Dove'. The weather remained thick for seventeen hours and it was 

 not until the afternoon of the 5th that they could resume their easterly progress : 



At 3 p.m. the sky began to break to the N.W., and by 4 p.m. the fog had cleared away, so that we 

 could see four or five miles, we then bore away East under easy sail; at 4h. 30m. p.m. the fog was 

 quite cleared away, and the sun made his appearance; at 4h. 40m. got sights, and found the longi- 

 tude, by chronometer, to be 49° 7' west, the variation, by amplitude, at setting was 19° 4' east. We 

 kept our course until we had run 32 miles; the wind was at S.W., and we hauled up to the S.E. and 

 run 12 miles to avoid a great quantity of ice trending in that direction: the weather cold and very 

 clear. At 3 a.m. [on Thursday, December 6, 1821] the man at the mast-head discovered land and ice, 

 bearing E. by S. : at this time the James Monroe was about four miles a-stern of us; I shortened sail 

 for her, and hailed her; they had not seen it until close up with us, and then Captain Palmer doubted 

 whether it was land or ice; but, at all events, he said he would follow me: we accordingly made sail, 

 and approached the land in as direct a course as we could, for the icebergs were scattered around the 

 land in every direction. At 9 a.m. we were up with the land; it proved to be three spiral rocks quite 

 inaccessible, without the least sign' of vegetation. 



These, with good reason, Powell called the Inaccessible Isles ; and although they were 

 the first landfall to be made in the history of the group, for 11 1 years there is no record 

 of anyone having set foot on them, until in January 1933 a party landed from the 

 'Discovery II'. 



From the Inaccessible Islands more land was sighted bearing east by north, which 

 they approached with considerable difficulty owing to the ice ; but in the early afternoon 

 Powell was near enough to observe that it was "a cluster of islands forming a bight 

 with the eastermost land".^ The 'Dove' entered the bight followed by the American 

 sloop. 



I told Captain Palmer [Powell writes], that I intended to land in my boat, he said it would not be 

 worth while, for they could see no prospect whatever of any seals; at all events we got our boat out, 

 and proceeded into the bight to a narrow pass that separated the islands from the main land. I here 

 found the tide to be setting to the northward, at about 4 miles per hour, which I found by the shore 

 to be flood tide. At the entrance of this passage the soundings were very irregular, and the bottom 

 rocky : in the centre of it there is a rock with not more than 6 feet water on it. The tide rises about 

 6 or 8 feet. 



There is little doubt that this passage, which appears to have been examined minutely by 

 Powell, is the narrow channel to the east of Spine Island ; it passes between Spine Island 

 and the mainland, communicating with Powell's bight in the north and with Sandefjord 

 Bay in the south^ (Chart I). It was at the northern entrance to this channel (Plate XII, 



1 Powell's bight is evidently the bight to the north of Sandefjord Bay formed by the Larsen Islands 

 with the mainland (see chart in pocket at end). 



^ Here Powell's sailing directions are of more than historical interest, for his is the only description that 

 exists of this particular channel. To the west of Spine Island and dividing Spine Island from Larsen Island, 

 there is a similar although slightly broader channel, now known as the Narrows, through which the tides 

 run very strongly. Whilst surveying the South Orkneys in January 1933, the R.R.S. 'Discovery II' passed 

 through and sounded the Narrows. Powell's passage to the east of Spine Island was "thought to be clear" 

 but unfortunately was not examined. 



