42 SCOTT'S LAST EXPEDITION [December 
At first things looked very bad — it took nearly half an 
hour to get started, much more than an hour to work away 
to one of the large area floes to which I have referred ; 
then to my horror the ship refused to look at it. Again 
by hard fighting we worked away to a crack running across 
this sheet, and to get through this crack required many 
stoppages and engine reversals. 
Then we had to shoot away south to avoid another 
unbroken floe of large area, but after we had rounded 
this things became easier ; from 6 o'clock we were almost 
able to keep a steady course, only occasionally hung up by 
some thicker floe. The rest of the ice was fairly recent 
and easily broken. At 7 the leads of recent ice became 
easier still, and at 8 we entered a long lane of open water. 
For a time we almost thought we had come to the end of 
our troubles, and there was much jubilation. But, alas ! 
at the end of the lead we have come again to heavy bay 
ice. It is undoubtedly this mixture of bay ice which 
causes the open leads, and I cannot but think that this 
is the King Edward's Land pack. We are making S.W. 
as best we can. 
What an exasperating game this is ! — one cannot tell 
what is going to happen in the next half or even quarter 
of an hour. At one moment everything looks flourishing, 
the next one begins to doubt if it is possible to get through. 
New Fish. — Just at the end of the open lead to-night 
we capsized a small floe and thereby jerked a fish out on 
top of another one. We stopped and picked it up, finding 
it a beautiful silver-grey, genus Notothenia — I think a new 
species. 
