FROM EDINBURGH TO THE ANTARCTIC 
soundings were made with Lord Kelvin's patent sounding 
machine, and bottom specimens secured. Floats were 
also thrown out to test the direction and speed of the 
surface currents. 
Weather. — All the observations that have been made 
in the Antarctic have been in the height of summer — 
that is, during the months of December, January, and 
February; and an account of our experiences during 
these months will give you a very fair idea of what 
Cook, Weddell, D'Urville, Wilkes, and Ross experienced 
before us. 
Like our predecessors, we found it to be a region of 
gales and calms — gales from the north, with wet fog ; gales 
from the south, with fine blinding snow ; calms with fog, 
and calms with brilliant sunshine. Towards the middle 
of December, when we were approaching the icy regions, 
we lay-to in squally weather and thick fogs. Gradually 
«.we pushed southward, and soon entered latitudes where 
flat-topped icebergs surrounded us on every side, and 
where pack-ice floated on the water. Squally weather 
continued till the 24th of December, when, in the vicinity 
of the Danger Islets, we met with a great number of 
bergs. Long shall I remember this Christmas Eve, when 
we were fast anchored to a floe. There was a perfect 
calm ; the sky, except at the horizon, had a dense canopy 
of cumulus clouds, which rested on the summits of the 
hills of Louis Philippe Land to the west ; and when the 
sun was just below the horizon, the soft greys and blues 
of the clouds, and the spotless whiteness of the ice as it 
z 
