328
MOUNT PERCY
[Chap. XII.
1842
Dec. 30.
Dec. 30.
the assistance of a fine breeze from the south, we succeeded, by 8 p.m., in forcing our way through the loose ice into an extensive sheet of clear water, between the land and the main pack.
With a light south-east wind we stood towards the land until midnight, when it fell calm for a short time. We tried for, but did not obtain, soundings with three hundred fathoms of line. It was a beautiful night, and we could distinguish the land as far to the southward as south-west entirely covered with snow, except in a few places where perpendicular cliffs, upon which it could not lodge, broke through the mountain glacier, and first arrested our attention. The summit of the mountain to the northward terminated in two remarkable peaks, whose elevation above the level of the sea was found to be 3700 feet. I named it Mount Percy, after Rear Admiral the Honourable Josceline Percy, the Commander-in-chief of the Cape of Good Hope station, to which these newly-discovered lands belong. The high, bold cape which forms the south extremity of the island, upon which Mount Percy rises, I named Cape Purvis, after Commodore Purvis, of whose valuable assistance to our expedition I have already spoken; and the high conical island near it was called Paulet Island, after our good friend and brother officer, Captain the Right Honourable Lord George Paulet, R. N., to whom we equally owe many obligations. Paulet Island is 750 feet above the sea, and its cliffs appear