412 SIEGE OF THE SOUTH POLE 
at his farthest east, but could not altogether trust. Return- 
ing along the barrier the ship was moored to a low quay 
of ice in 164° W., where the balloon was landed and a 
captive ascent made in order to get a wide view toward 
the south and Mr. Armitage made a sledge-trip across the 
undulating surface of the barrier to 78° 50' S. 
On February 10th, the Discovery entered McMurdo 
Bay and anchored a few miles to the south-west of Mount 
Erebus, in a sheltered harbour where it seemed safe to 
winter. She sailed over the slopes of the mountains as 
laid down on Ross’s chart, almost the only instance in 
which that cautious navigator had drawn land from in- 
sufficient evidence. Here all possible precautions were 
taken to secure the ship and to ensure the safety of any 
land party should the ice suddenly break away and carry 
the Discovery out. Huts were erected on shore and 
many short excursions undertaken, in the course of which 
it was found that Ross’s first impression that Mts. Erebus 
and Terror were on an island was correct, that the Parry 
Mountains did not exist, and that McMurdo Bay was not 
a bay at all, but a strait leading southward between 
“ High Island,” as Ross first called it, and the mainland, a 
lofty mountain on v/hich was named after the Discovery. 
On one of the excursions the only fatal accident during 
the whole stay in the Antarctic regions occurred, a party 
being overtaken by a blizzard when crossing a dangerous 
snowfield terminating in a vertical ice-cliff, over which 
one of the sailors fell into the sea and was lost. 
Early in April, 1902, the cold became very severe, tem- 
peratures more than 40 degrees below zero being re- 
corded ; but even as late as the first week of May all the 
ice was blown out of the strait to within 200 yards of the 
ship. The winter passed cheerily, everyone was busy 
