THE ICE-BARRIER. 
77 
steam, however, the ship happily got clear of the berg without further damage than the loss of 
her jib-boom and adjoining gear. Both on the 23rd and 24th we had been within a short 
distance of a position named in the charts “ Wilkes’ Termination Land,” discovered in 
February, 1840. This navigator mentions “an appearance of land” at a distance of sixty 
miles. Although we had approached to within twenty miles of the position, no trace of land 
could be made out, and its existence seems very doubtful. In fact, even the most practised 
eye, as it scans the ice-bound horizon, often crested with sharp-edged banks of white clouds, 
will be deceived by what appear to be unmistakable signs of land. 
The afternoon of the 24th was spent in skilfully avoiding contact with the numerous 
icebergs that crossed our path, and 
which in the gloom of the gale 
were hardly visible until they were 
close upon us. A hardly less 
anxious night was passed in steam¬ 
ing to and fro between two of 
these giants. During the 25th, we 
proceeded along the edge of the pack-ice. February 25th, noon. 
pack-ice which encumbered the horizon in the east, south, and west. Amongst the bergs 
noticed in the course of this day was one which very prominently showed a series of beaches 
formed by the successive changes of the line of flotation. 
After the critical moments through which we had passed, it was a source of relief to 
all on board when the “Challenger” altered her course for Melbourne, distant about 2300 
miles. In spite of the gales and snowstorms of the next following days, the good ship soon 
carried us into more genial latitudes. Near midnight on the 3 r d March a fine Aurora 
Australis stretched its four con¬ 
centric arcs above the horizon, from 
south-east to west, and from an 
altitude of 30° up to the zenith. 
On the 4th, the last iceberg was 
observed in the shape of an attenu¬ 
ated slab of ice, with its upper 
surface worn smooth by the waves. 
On the 8th, the patent log was 
ICE-BEACHES, FEBRUARY 25th, IO a.TIl. 
found foul, having got entangled in a quantity of sea-weed 
(,UUrmllia ), covered with numerous barnacles ( Lepas ),• while in the evening of the 9th, the 
ship passed through a shoal of Pyrosoma, leaving a long trail of light in her wake, that 
" burned in silver streams along the liquid plain.” The temperature-soundings of the 10th 
and 13th afforded evidence of the existence of the great South Australian Current—a mass 
of warm water which, issuing from the Indian Ocean, flows in a south-easterly direction to 
the southward of Australia and Tasmania—an oceanic river about 400 miles broad and as 
many fathoms deep, which, as it bends towards and crosses the Antarctic Circle, is the 
