THE JOURNAL OF M. J. DUMONT-D’URVILLE. 447 
a boat to so great a distance was not without danger. Besides our boats 
were very inferior in sailing qualities to the whaler, which I had already 
dispatched to make the physical observations. However, as I was 
anxious to profit by the fortunate circumstances which might never 
occur again, I confided the large boat to M. Duroch, with the order to 
collect palpable fragments of our discovery. The Zélée also sent a boat 
under the command of M. Dubouzet. Like ourselves, the officers of this 
‘ship had noticed bare islets, and were also keenly anxious to go and 
examine them. 
At 9 o'clock MM. Dumoulin and Coupvent returned on board, having 
finished all their observations. They had established one important 
fact which explained how the ice-islands, after being formed on the 
coast, were able to float away so rapidly. After having arranged a 
dip-cirele on the ice where they had landed, these gentlemen had 
turned the lunette d’épreuve on to a very distant iceberg. After a very 
short time they perceived that the island on to which they had directed 
the glass had undergone a great movement. Afterwards, when they 
aimed at one of the points of the land, in order to know if the iceberg 
on which they stood (and which appeared much larger) had a movement 
of its own, they proved that this enormous mass was being impelled in- 
dependently by a movement, which though it appeared very slight, was 
not the less evident to the glass. While the corvettes were lying-to I 
had tried to take soundings; unfortunately all our sounding-lines were 
almost useless. I had only been able to drop the lead to 100 fathoms 
without finding bottom. It is certain, since the ice on which MM. Du- 
moulin and Coupvent had made their observations was not resting on 
the earth, it is certain, I say, that the sea there is very deep. 
The two boats which had gone ashore did not return till 10.30, laden 
with fragments of rocks detached from the shore. The following is an 
account of this interesting excursion from the journal of M. Dubouzet :— 
“During the whole day all eyes had been fixed on the coast to try and 
discover something other than snow and ice. At last, when we were 
beginning to despair, after having passed a mass of floating islands which 
quite blucked out the shore, we noticed several little islets the sides of 
which, destitute of snow, showed us that blackish earth so ardently desired. 
Several minutes later we saw the large boat of the Astrolabe leave the 
corvette and start towards the shore with an officer and two naturalists. 
Immediately I requested Commander Jacquinot to embark me in his 
yawl, which he ordered to be lowered to send ashore. The Astrolabe boat 
had already got a good start of us; after 24 hours hard rowing we 
reached the nearest islet. Our men were so full of ardour that they 
hardly noticed the effort they had just been making, in covering more 
than seven miles in so short a time. Going along, we passed quite close 
to immense ice-islands. Their perpendicular sides, eaten away by the 
sea, were crowned on the top by long needles of a greenish ice formed 
