HISTORY OF DISCOVERY. 79 



of Wilkes's squadron, the Porpoise, commanded by Hud- 

 son, which, to the surprise of both sides, here encountered 

 D'Urville's ships on the 29th of January. 



When on the 30th of January the snow, which had 

 gradually succeeded to the dense fog of the previous day, 

 diminished and the sky cleared, the look-out announced 

 pack-ice to the south. D'Urville made for it, but saw on 

 his nearer approach that it was not pack-ice at all, and 

 that the outer edge of the ice was of an entirely different 

 character. It descended in perpendicular walls of 90 to 

 140 feet high to the surface of the sea, and thus formed 

 a gigantic barrier, stretching far away to the west. Here 

 and there, however, local indentations corresponded to 

 the icebergs piled up in front of them, and here attaining 

 a greater height than had previously been met with. In 

 the far distance capes and bays were discerned, but all 

 these variations in the coast outline ended in the perpen- 

 dicular ice barrier. The vessels sailed along this wall 

 for a distance of seventy to ninety miles without seeing 

 any height rising above the elevated snow-covered plain. 

 The height, moreover, precluded all possibility of getting 

 a detailed view of the interior. On the evening of the 

 day which had been wholly given up to the examination 

 of this coast, a promontory was reached, from which the 

 ice extended in a south-westerly direction, apparently far 

 beyond the horizon, as was conjectured from the marked 

 ice-blink in that quarter. D'Urville was confident that 

 this ice barrier was connected with land, to which he gave 

 the name of "The Clarie Coast" (Cote Clarie). Even 

 on the following day he pursued his course along the 

 barrier, but only to be stopped by actual pack-ice, the 

 edge of which stretched away to the west and north-west. 

 Without any further attempt to circumvent this, he turned 

 north, satisfied with his results, which included numerous 

 meteorological and magnetic observations — the latter 

 having as far as possible been made on the ice. After a 



