SOUTH 
loose pack all day, and the view from the crow's-nest gave no 
promise of improved conditions ahead. A Weddell seal and a 
crab-eater seal were noticed on the floes, but we did not pause 
to secure fresh meat. It was important that we should make 
progress towards our goal as rapidly as possible, and there was 
reason to fear that we should have plenty of time to spare 
later on if the ice conditions continued to increase in severity. 
On the morning of December 12 we were working through 
loose pack which later became thick in places. The sky was 
overcast and light snow was falling. I had all square sail set at 
7 a.m. in order to take advantage of the northerly breeze, but 
it had to come in again five hours later when the uind hauled 
round to the west. 'J'he noon position was lat. 60° 26' S., long. 
17"^ 58' W., and the run for the twenty-four hours had been 
only 33 miles. The ice was still badly congested, and we were 
pushing through narrow leads and occasional openings Avith the 
floes often close abeam on either side. Antarctic, snow and 
stormy petrels, fulmars, white-rumped terns, and adelies were 
around us. The quaint little penguins found the ship a cause 
of much apparent excitement and provided a lot of anmsement 
aboard. One of the standing jokes was that all the adelies on 
the floe seemed to know Clark, and v/hen he was at the wheel 
rushed along as fast as their legs could carry them, yelling out 
Clark ! Clark ! " and apparently very indignant and perturbed 
that he never waited for them or even answered them. 
We found several good leads to the south in the evening, 
and continued to work southward throughout the night and 
the folloAving day. The pack extended in all directions as far 
as the eye could reach. The noon observation showed the run 
for the twenty-four hom-s to be 54 miles, a satisfactory result 
under the conditions. Wild shot a young Ross seal on the floe, 
and we manaeu\T:ed the ship alongside. Hudson jumped down, 
bent a line on to the seal, and the pair of them were hauled up. 
The seal was 4 ft. 9 in. long and weighed about ninety pounds. 
He was a young male and proved very good eating, but when 
dressed and minus the blubber made little more than a square 
meal for our twenty-eight men, with a few scraps for our 
breakfast and tea. The stomach contained only amphipods 
8 
