ii2 THE VOYAGE OF THE 'DISCOVERY' (Jan. 



fiable expenditure of coal. The ice we faced was evidently 

 that which had been formed in the bay ; it was from six to 

 seven feet thick, and far more solid than anything we had yet 

 encountered. Very little snow had fallen on the surface of 

 the floes, and except where some volcanic sand and rubble 

 had been carried on to them by the wind, there was no sign of 

 decay. To run into floes of this description was a very 

 different matter to charging the comparatively rotten ice which 

 we had met in the pack. 



Away to the N. and N.W. of us we could now see the 

 sharp peaks of Monteagle and Murchison, amongst bewilder- 

 ing clusters of lesser summits ; across the bay rose the 

 magnificent bare cliff of Cape Sibbald, rising 2,000 feet above 

 the sea ; to the west one could trace the breaks in hill-outline 

 suggestive of the windings of the arms of the bay and the 

 glacier valleys beyond, but the eye lingered most pleasantly on 

 the uniform outline of Mount Melbourne to the S.W. This 

 fine mountain rears an almost perfect volcanic cone to a 

 height of 9,000 feet, and, standing alone with no competing 

 height to take from its grandeur, it constitutes the most 

 magnificent landmark on the coast. Cape Washington, 

 a bold, sharp headland, projects from the foot of the moun- 

 tain on its eastern side, and finding such heavy pack in 

 Wood Bay, we now turned to the south to pass around this 

 cape. 



From this point our voyage promised to be increasingly 

 interesting, since the coast to the south of Cape Washington 

 was practically unknown. Ross seems to have satisfied himself 

 that there was a continuance of land to Mount Erebus, but he 

 saw it only at a very great distance— a fact which is attested by 

 the absence of names from individual mountains and capes. 

 He probably did not see more than the dim outline of hills far 

 beyond his horizon, and the only particular name he supplies — 

 that of Cape Gauss — was probably given to some darker patch 

 of bare mountain-side, as at this spot there is no such con- 

 spicuous cape as he imagined. I have already pointed out 

 how easily one may be deceived in such a matter, and it can 



