FIRST ANTARCTIC NIGHT 389 
with a little good-will we could have landed in many 
other places and collected much more geological material 
than we did. For this eighteenth landing he conducted 
me himself but for ten minutes only. A few strokes of 
the oars brought us to the beach amid cries of ‘ Hurry 
up, Arqtowski ! * I gave a hammer to Tellefsen with 
orders to chip here and there down by the shore, while 
I hurriedly climbed the moraine, picking up specimens as 
I ran, took the direction with my compass, glanced to the 
left and right, and hurried down again full speed to get 
a look at the rock in situ; meanwhile Cook had taken a 
photograph of the place from the ship — and that is the 
way geological surveys have to be carried out in the 
Antarctic/' 
On February 12th, 1898, the Belgica left the strait and 
passed southward along the coast of Graham Land at a 
date when all previous expeditions in these waters had 
been making haste for home. Icebergs became more 
numerous and the sea along the coast was beset with 
rocks which made navigation slow and difficult. On 
February 15th the Belgica crossed the Antarctic circle 
steaming southwest. Next day Alexander I. Land came 
in sight, but could not be approached as the ice-pack 
extended for twenty miles from the shore. It lay to the 
south and seemed an aggregate of mountains above which 
some lofty peaks rose boldly. The glaciers descending 
from these mountains coalesced along the shore in a 
broad terrace or ice-foot which merged into the pack. 
A large island or mountain was seen to the east, ap- 
parently forming the southern extremity of Graham 
Land, which seemed to be separated from Alexander 
Land by a strait or at least a gulf. Too much stress must 
not be laid on the features of land seen at so great a 
