92 ADDRESS. 



gale and a heavy fog ; thermometer thirty to thirty -one at noon. 

 Continual daylight, except when obscured by the thick vapours. 

 Albatrosses, penguins, and peterels, in great numbers here. In lat- 

 itude 70 23', the navigators met with islands of ice, three or four 

 miles in circumference, and, shortly thereafter, observed that the 

 clouds in the southern horizon were of a snowy white, and of unu- 

 sual brightness, appearances which were known to announce the 

 approach to field ice. On reaching latitude 71 10', in longitude 

 106 54' W., the extreme point of their voyage, they came upon 

 the edge of an immense frozen expanse, which rilled the whole 

 area of the southern horizon, and illumined the air to a consider- 

 able height with the rays of light reflected from its surface. In 

 the back ground the ice rose in ridges, like chains of mountains, 

 one above another, till lost in the clouds. Of these ridges they 

 counted ninety-seven. The outer, or northern edge of this gigan- 

 tic field, was broken ice, firmly wedged together, and impassable. 

 This fringe was about a mile in breadth, and within it was the 

 solid ice, which was low and flat, with the exception of the moun- 

 tains before alluded to. It was Captain Cook's opinion, that this 

 mighty mass of crystallization extended to the Pole; or was joined 

 to some land southward, to which it had been affixed from earliest 

 time, and that here was generated all the ice found in such variety 

 of shape and quantity further north ; the same having been broken 

 off from the main body by the action of gales, and carried in that 

 direction by currents, which he had observed invariably set to the 

 northward in very high latitudes. Few birds were here seen, and 

 yet it is evident from the tenor of the distinguished commander's 

 remarks, that he believed land to exist south of the parallel at 

 which he arrived, though he doubted if it were not inhospitable, 

 and destitute of animal or vegetable life as the ice itself. 



We are not surprised that Cook was unable to go beyond 71 

 10', but we are astonished that he did attain that point on the 

 meridian of 106 54' west longitude. Palmer's Land lies south of 



