i9] CAPE ARMITAGE 61 



sastrugi and layers of fine dust on which the snow has taken 

 hold. 



We are within 5 miles of Cape Royds and ought to get there. 



Wednesday, January 4, p.m. This work is full of surprises. 



At 6 A.M. we came through the last of the Strait pack some 

 three miles north of Cape Royds. We steered for the Cape, 

 fully expecting to find the edge of the pack ice ranging west- 

 ward from it. To our astonishment we ran on past the Cape 

 with clear water or thin sludge ice on all sides of us. Past 

 Cape Royds, past Cape Barne, past the glacier on its south side, 

 and finally round and past Inaccessible Island, a good 2 miles 

 south of Cape Royds. ' The Cape itself was cut off from the 

 south.' We could have gone farther, but the last sludge ice 

 seemed to be increasing in thickness, and there was no wintering 

 spot to aim for but Cape Armitage.* ' I have never seen the 

 ice of the Sound in such a condition or the land so free from 

 snow. Taking these facts in conjunction with the exceptional 

 warmth of the air, I came to the conclusion that it had been 

 an exceptionally warm summer. At this point it was evident that 

 we had a considerable choice of wintering spots. We could have 

 gone to either of the small islands, to the mainland, the Glacier 

 Tongue, or pretty well anywhere except Hut Point. My main 

 wish was to choose a place that would not be easily cut off from 

 the Barrier, and my eye fell on a cape which we used to call the 

 Skuary a little behind us. It was separated from old Discovery 

 quarters by two deep bays on either side of the Glacier Tongue, 

 and I thought that these bays would remain frozen until late in 

 the season, and that when they froze over again the ice would 

 soon become firm.' I called a council and put these propositions. 

 To push on to the Glacier Tongue and winter there; to push 

 west to the ' tombstone ' ice and to make our way to an inviting 

 spot to the northward of the cape we used to call ' the Skuary.' 

 I favoured the latter course, and on discussion we found it 

 obviously the best, so we turned back close around Inaccessible 

 Island and steered for the fast ice off the Cape at full speed. 

 After piercing a small fringe of thin ice at the edge of the fast 

 floe the ship's stem struck heavily on hard bay ice about a mile 

 and a half from the shore. Here was a road to the Cape and 



* The extreme S. point of the Island, a dozen miles farther, on one of whose minor 

 headlands, Hut Point, stood the Discovery hut. 



