270 SIEGE OF THE SOUTH POLE 
goal. The increasing number of petrels of various 
species, the penguins which began to appear and the 
albatrosses sweeping round the ships raised hopes of the 
proximity of land. The weather was not too favourable, 
midsummer as it was. The Christmas dinner was eaten 
while laying-to in a gale of wind, Captain Ross — who, 
following the custom of the navy, messed alone — was on 
this occasion the guest of the officers in the gun-room. 
Two days later the first iceberg was seen in 63° 20' S., 
and before night fifteen were in sight. A great many 
whales were seen, so tame that they allowed the ships 
to pass quite close to them. They were “ the common 
black kind, greatly resembling, but said to be distinct 
from the Greenland whale,” and any number of them 
might have been killed. 
On the 30th the ships crossed Bellingshausen's track 
in 64° 38' S., 1 73 0 10' E., and as it fell calm in the 
afternoon a sounding was taken with 5000 fathoms of 
line on the reel, and bottom was struck at 1560 fathoms. 
Temperature observations were made; but as the spe- 
cial thermometers designed to withstand the pressure of 
the water which had been ordered to reach the expedi- 
tion at Hobart Tov/n had not been received, the results 
were of no value. This day the beautiful snow-petrel 
appeared, its body of spotless white with jet black beak 
and legs, a premonition of the approach of ice, for it 
was soon discovered that the bird never strays far from 
the main pack. 
At 9- a. m. on the last day of the year a long line of 
ice appeared on the horizon which soon proved to be 
the edge of the pack. The weather fell calm and the 
two ships lay in front of the low line of ice unable to 
approach or to retire from it. Other Antarctic ex- 
