500 APPENDIX. 



Desirous of speaking, and exchanging the usual and customary 

 compliments incident to naval life, I closed with them, designing to 

 pass within hail under the flag-ship's stern. When within short 

 musket-shot, my intentions too evident to excite a doubt, so far from 

 a reciprocity being evinced, I saw, with surprise, sail made on board 

 the flag-ship. Without a moment's delay, I hauled down my colours 

 and bore upon my course. 



On the morning of the 31st, at 8 a. m., I found myself com- 

 pletely embayed in an immense gulf, with a field of table-ice one 

 hundred and fifty feet high, bearing to the northward, and from east 

 to west so far as eye could discern. After consuming the day in 

 trending to windward, I passed out along its eastern margin without 

 accident. 



In my progress and examinations, I obtained frequent specimens of 

 sandstone, granite, and red clay, from the field and floe-ice. 



I gained the meridian of 105° E., on the 12th of February, latitude 

 64° 54' S. ; the weather was at intervals misty, affording little oppor- 

 tunity for observation; many strong indications of land presented 

 themselves. The barrier assumed a dark discoloured appearance, 

 with numerous stratified veins of earth and rocks, and with lofty and 

 conical peaks, remotely placed along its southern portion ; the im- 

 pression of land, surrounded and covered by field-ice, was often 

 strongly urged. Penguins and seals were seen, and in my anxiety 

 to land and convince my mind, I was embayed in a narrow and dan- 

 gerous inlet, which, with the aid of a strong southeast wind, was 

 cleared in safety ere night closed in. 



The wind easterly and the weather becoming clear, the occasion 

 seemed so auspicious, that I was induced to extend my researches a 

 day or two, believing it would meet your approbation. 



As I advanced westward, the marks of the approach to land were 

 becoming too plain to admit a doubt. The constant and increasing 

 noise of penguins and seals, the dark and discoloured aspect of the 

 ocean, with frequent huge masses of black frozen earth identified 

 therewith, strongly impressed me with the belief that a positive result 

 would arise, in the event of a possibility to advance a few miles 

 further south. 



On the afternoon of the 13th, I landed and extracted from an im- 

 mense mass of black earth identified with the barrier, some hundreds 

 of yards back from the margin, specimens of rock corresponding to 

 those previously obtained. At sunset of the 13th, one hundred and 



