FROM EDINBURGH TO THE ANTARCTIC 289 
direction, with a fall of some thirty feet at its edge — the 
field-ice, probably, that Ross saw ; but beyond it to the 
S.E. I can see open water. 1 
We have just had a glimpse of this land never seen by 
man, and now we are turning back again. Is it possible 
to conceive anything more heart-breaking ? From what 
we see here, and before us, we feel confident we could 
sail S.E., or S. by E., without the least difficulty. The ice 
we have come through seems closer than that which lies 
before us. I think this ice that we have been in lately 
forms a long tail or stream of floes and bergs in the lee 
of Trinity, Joinville Land, and the South Shetlands, col- 
lected by currents through Bransfield Straits and the 
prevailing south-westerly winds and the currents from 
the South of Trinity Land. Once through this pack 
ice we could make the open water Weddell found to the 
east. This ice we are in just now, which barred the pro- 
gress of Ross's sailing vessels, is no obstacle to us with 
our auxiliary steam power. 
Is it not incomprehensible why so much interest has been 
shown in Arctic exploration, where all the difficulties of 
making progress are well known, where scientific questions 
are practically exhausted, whilst no general interest is taken 
in these Antarctic regions, where there are no difficulties 
known in the way of discovery, and the answers to the 
magnetic, meteorological, and geographical questions of 
the day are to be read by the first explorers? 
Would that I owned this ship and this good crew even 
for three summer months in the Antarctic. Just such a 
1 The bearings in this paragraph are not from compass. 
T 
