542 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



whales were lying upon the water in all directions ; their enor- 

 mous breadth quite astonished us. The color of the sea was a 

 dirty brown, probably occasioned by minute ferruginous infuso- 

 ria, which were found in the greenish-colored mud that was 

 brought up by the deep-sea clams from a depth of two hundred 

 and seven fathoms." The sea was as Ross describes it, and sound- 

 ings were obtained at 8 p. m. in one hundred and ninety-four fath- 

 oms, but no black whale did we see, only whales with fins on their 

 backs, but be it noted that several grampuses or killers were seen 

 from the masthead, and they are noted persecutors of the black 

 whale in the north. 



Up to this time several seals had been obtained — the large 

 seal, the white antarctic seal, and the sea leopard ; also four dif- 

 ferent kinds of penguins, including a few of the large emperor 

 penguins, and one seen in the neighborhood of the Falklands. 

 Besides these, we had met with a good many sheathbills, several 

 snowy petrel, the blue petrel, the giant petrel, the stormy petrel, 

 the cape pigeon, a gray gull, and later with many terns and a few 

 great petrel. Christmas eve and Christmas day, when we were 

 fast to the floe, Avill long be remembered by the members of the 

 expedition. There was a perfect calm ; the sky, except at the 

 horizon, had a dense canopy of cumulus rolls, which rested on the 

 summits of the western hills, and when the sun was just below 

 the horizon the soft grays and blues of the clouds and the spot- 

 less whiteness of the ice as it floated in the black and glossy sea 

 were tinted with the most delicate of colors — rich purples and 

 rosy hues, blues, and greens, passing into translucent yellows. At 

 midnight the solitude of the vacant deck was grand and impress- 

 ive, and perhaps more so since we had, for well-nigh a week, 

 been drifting among bergs with dense fog and very squally 

 weather. Nothing broke the calm peacef ulness ; now a flock of 

 the beautiful sheathbills would hover round the vessel, fanning 

 the limpid air with their wings of creamy whiteness, and over 

 yonder was a foul carrion bird with outstretched wings feeding 

 upon the gory corpse of a slaughtered seal. All was in such uni- 

 son, all in such perfect harmony ; but it was a passing charm. 

 Soon we had to think of more prosaic things, and reluctantly we 

 turned our thoughts to the cargo we were to seek. It was with 

 the produce of seals that we were destined to fill our ship, and till 

 February 17th we were literally up to the neck in blood. All the 

 sails are stowed ; the captain sits in the crow's nest from early 

 morning till late in the evening ; the two engineers, relieving one 

 another, take charge of the engines ; the cook or the steward is on 

 the lookout on deck or on the bridge ; and the doctor takes the 

 helm, unless he can manage to get away in the boats, in which 

 case some other noncombatant has to take his place — all the rest 



