120 THE VOYAGE OF THE 'DISCOVERY' [Jan. 



satisfactory to note that there are no mountains in the back- 

 ground, and that so far as the eye can see there must be a 

 plain stretching directly south. . . . We now see that if fortune 

 allows us to winter in either of the two harbours we have 

 found, we shall have good prospect of getting to the south. . . . 

 In this manner the coastline to the south for nearly 40 of arc 

 is suggested by five dark rock patches and their connecting 

 snow slopes, this space being flanked on the right by the 

 conical hill and on the left by a spur of Erebus, which appears 

 to form a sharp headland.' It was easy afterwards to recognise 

 each point here noticed when, actually situated at the • spur of 

 Erebus,' we named the conical mountain after our ship, and 

 the high western mountains in honour of the Royal Society ; 

 but it is curious to think that at this time I should have been 

 prepared to affirm that continuous land ran from Erebus to 

 the mainland. 



So at 8 p.m. on the 21st we thought we knew as much of 

 this region as our heavy expenditure of coal in the pack-ice 

 would justify us in finding out, and as before us lay the great 

 unsolved problem of the barrier and of what lay beyond it, we 

 turned our course with the cry of Eastward ho ! 



