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EXAMINATION OF THE PACK.
[Chap. VIII.
1841
wind shifted half an hour sooner, we should certainly have been frozen up in a most dangerous situation between the barrier and the pack; and had we eventually escaped without more serious consequences, we should at any rate have lost some of the few remaining days of the navigable season. A thick fog which prevailed for several hours added to the embarrassment of our situation, and rendered it the more difficult to keep the ships together, by obliging us to carry more moderate sail whilst amongst so much heavy ice and so many bergs.
At noon we were in lat. 77° 56′ S., long. 190° 15′ E. At 4 p.m. the fog cleared away, and we were again enabled to press all sail on the ships, running to the westward close along the edge of the main pack; the wind freshening from the northward drove it quickly down upon the barrier; and soon the channel by which we had escaped was filled by heavy ice closely pressed together, so that not the smallest hole of water could be seen amongst it. I was most anxious to examine as great an extent of the barrier to the eastward as possible, in order to leave less to be accomplished the following year; but the season was now fast drawing to a close, and the present state of the pack rendered any attempt to penetrate it quite hopeless. I determined, however, to devote two or three days to seeking a passage through it further to the northward, and accordingly the whole of the tenth and eleventh was passed examining the pack edge, but without our being