250 SCOTT'S LAST EXPEDITION [MARCH 



This was the last we saw of the land, the pack not being finally 

 cleared till in Lat. 64 23' S. Many times false hopes were 

 raised by the ship running into clear water and being able to turn 

 west and even south of west towards where C. Hudson is marked 

 on the charts, but invariably it was only a few hours before she 

 would be turned and, as a general rule, each noon position was 

 east of the previous one. On the whole, after leaving the coast, 

 the floes were of a less formidable character than those found off 

 the north shore of Victoria Land, but the interspaces were filled 

 with slush or else frozen over with new ice. This made pack 

 that earlier in the season would have been easily negotiable now 

 absolutely impassable. The nights also were drawing out, and 

 after dark the first appearance of pack had to be the signal to 

 heave to till daylight, which often meant till 6 A.M., as the morn- 

 ing twilight was found very bad for picking a way through the 

 pack. 



The sea was now frozen over in the sort of large lakes or 

 pools of still, open water that were found in this sea, and though 

 this ice was never more than a few inches thick, it made a con- 

 siderable difference to our speed. 



On March 2, while working through fairly loose pack, the 

 wind that had been light westerly turned to E.N.E., with the 

 March 2 immediate effect of closing the floes in, and the ship 

 1911, 67*35' was completely held up. During that night the wind 

 S.,i6oi& shifted again to the southward and so topsails and 

 foresail were set. It was merely waste of coal to try 

 and steam through this ice, but the steady pressure of the ship 

 under sail let her gradually, though very slowly, work through; 

 often held up by a floe for an hour or more, in the end she would 

 manage to turn it and run ahead half a ship's length or so. This 

 meant that in her wake was generally to be found a small pool 

 of water clear of ice. 



A number of whales (Lesser Rorquals) were in this pack, 

 and they soon discovered this clear water and took advantage 

 of it to come and blow; as there was not room for them to come 

 up in the ordinary way, they had to thrust their heads up ver- 

 tically and blow in a sort of standing-on-their-tails position. Sev- 

 eral times one rested its head on a floe, not twenty feet from the 

 ship, with its nostrils just on the water-line; raising itself a few 

 inches, it would blow and then subside again for a few minutes 



