4 8 
SCOTT'S LAST EXPEDITION [December 
Tuesday, December 20. — Noon 68° 41' S., 179 0 28' W. 
Made good S. 36 W. 58 ; C. Crozicr S. 20 W. 563'. 
The good conditions held up to midnight last night ; we 
went from lead to lead with only occasional small diffi- 
culties. At 9 o'clock we passed along the western edge of 
a big stream of very heavy bay ice — such ice as would 
come out late in the season from the inner reaches and 
bays of Victoria Sound, where the snows drift deeply. 
For a moment one imagined a return to our bad con- 
ditions, but we passed this heavy stuff in an hour and 
came again to the former condition, making our way in 
leads between floes of great area. 
Bowers reported a floe of 12 square miles in the middle 
watch. We made very fair progress during the night, and 
an excellent run in the morning watch. Before eight a 
moderate breeze sprang up from the west and the ice 
began to close. We have worked our way a mile or two 
on since, but with much difficulty, so that we have now 
decided to bank fires and wait for the ice to open again ; 
meanwhile we shall sound and get a haul with tow nets. 
I'm afraid we arc still a long way from the open water ; 
the floes are large, and where we have stopped they seem 
to be such as must have been formed early last winter. 
The signs of pressure have increased again. Bergs were 
very scarce last night, but there are several around us 
to-day. One has a number of big humps on top. It is 
curious to think how these big blocks became perched 
so high. I imagine the berg must have been calved 
from a region of hard-pressure ridges. [Later] This is a 
mistake — on closer inspection it is quite clear that the 
