14B siege of the south pole 
giving rise to huge icebergs, and he believed that the ex- 
ceptional quantity of ice sighted in that year could be 
best accounted for by the occurrence of great earth- 
quakes, which broke it off from the land. Thus Biscoe 
set out with some ground for looking for land and not 
merely fields of sea-ice in the far south. 
Fortunately, Biscoe’s log has been preserved, having 
been presented to the Royal Geographical Society by 
Mr. Charles Enderby, and the essential parts of it were 
published both in the English and French geographical 
journals of the period. 
Biscoe’s command left Gravesend on July 14th, 1830, 
and sailed from Berkeley Sound in the Falklands 
on November 27th, to carry out his instructions 
by visiting the southeast part of Sandwich Land. On 
the way he thought it advisable to cruise to the north- 
ward of the position assigned to the Aurora Islands by 
the Atrevida, so as to dispel any lingering suspicion of 
the possible existence of that troublesome group, Wed- 
dell's courses having lain to the southward. The search 
proved fruitless and the Auroras will trouble us no more. 
On the voyage south the cutter was lost sight of in a 
fog on December nth, and the Tula lay-to until noon in 
the hope that she would reappear. What made it worse 
was that the carpenter had gone aboard the smaller ves- 
sel to repair a boat two days before, and had not been 
able to return. It was a wretched day for Biscoe, for his 
barometer ‘‘burst of itself," and left him without a 
weather-glass; the brig then ran over something, prob- 
ably only floating ice, but it scraped unpleasantly along 
her keel, and to crown this day of misfortunes she was 
in the position assigned on the chart to Traversey Island 
and might strike upon it at any moment in the dark. 
