Recent Antarctic Exploration 7 



his companions to refresh and recruit. During the fine 

 weather of the early part of the day the "Gauss" could 

 have steamed well up to windward, and might have found 

 shelter under the lee of the land. Even if the land had 

 proved unapproachable, the oceanographical and biological 

 survey of the sea would have afforded profitable employment 

 for several days under shelter. In order however to obtain 

 magnetical observations, the ship ran some four or five miles 

 to the north-west ; then dredging was done, while the ship 

 drifted farther out towards the pack-ice, and an easterly wind 

 arose and rapidly freshened. The ship ran before it she 

 probably could not have made head against it into the 

 pack-ice through an opening between two edges. " I con- 

 fess," says Drygalski, "that in passing between those edges 

 I experienced serious misgivings." Still, a north-westerly 

 course was in the direction of the open water, and he could 

 naturally expect that with luck he would work through. In 

 the night he tried to put back to the open water off the 

 newly-discovered land, but the ship could make no way 

 against the storm. It mattered not how her head might lie, 

 she drifted with the ice. This went on hour after hour. 

 About four o'clock in the morning the motion both of the 

 ship and of the surrounding ice diminished, and in a short 

 time everything stood still. The open water was not more 

 than a mile distant from the ship ; and it was naturally hoped 

 that she would get free. But the " Gauss " had gone into 

 winter-quarters, and she remained fast for a whole year, with 

 open water almost always in sight from the mast-head. 



This long period of confinement was spent in fairly com- 

 fortable circumstances. The "Gauss" was ice-bound some 

 fifty miles from the edge of the continental inland ice ; but 

 the travelling over that distance appears to have been re- 

 markably easy. Frequent excursions were made to that part 

 of the continent where the Gauss-berg protruded. No ex- 

 peditions further inland were made. This was not due to 

 any difficulty in travelling over the ice, but chiefly to the 

 fact that the permanence of the ship's winter-quarters was 

 open to doubt. So far as can be gathered from the narrative, 



