72 SIEGE OF THE SOUTH POLE 
southward was made impossible by the increasing thick- 
ness of the crowd of bergs and at 6 p. m. on the same day 
a vast expanse of solid ice appeared, rising only about 
eighteen feet above the sea but stretching with a perfectly 
uniform surface, as far as the eye could reach from the 
top of the mast. It was the signal for retreat. The 
season was too far advanced to try to turn the edge of 
this barrier and to the joy of all on board except the 
captain the Resolution’s head was turned northward in 
latitude 67° 15' S. and 39 0 35' E. due south of the Mozam- 
bique Channel. The supply of fresh water had given 
out some time before, but Cook was aware of some 
previous researches on sea-ice and to the disgust of his 
sailors who expected an earlier refuge in some “ New 
Cytherea ” of the tropics, he ordered out the boats and 
filled his barrels with blocks hewn from the nearest 
mass of floating ice. 
At the end of January the Resolution was cruising in 
49 0 N., 59 0 E. looking for the lands discovered by the 
French expeditions of the previous year of which Cook 
had heard at Cape Town. It is curious that he was 
exactly in the latitude of Kerguelen Land, but io° too 
far east, being in fact midway between that island and 
the Crozets, and accordingly he saw nothing of either. 
The two ships parted company in a gale on February 
8th, and as a portion of the summer still remained, Cook 
bore southeast once more, and fell in with icebergs in the 
middle of February in 57 0 S. On February 24th he was 
in 61 0 52' S. and 95 0 E., and once more fields of ice 
blocked the way. Again and again the appearance of 
penguins and other birds seemed to indicate the vicinity 
of land, but Cook did not lay much stress on this prog- 
nostic and was convinced that far from being the north- 
