Jan. 21.
The land ice, although not more than five or six feet above the surface, and therefore probably not more than forty feet in thickness, blends so imperceptibly with the snow which descends from the mountains at this part and extends far into the sea, that it was almost impossible to form any idea of the exact position of the coast line; thus from the edge of the land ice, it seemed at no great distance from its margin gradually to ascend until it reached the summits of the highest mountains. To the N.W. the space between Coulman Island and the main land was occupied by a similar kind of land ice that appeared not to have been broken away for many years: in this particular more like the barrier described by Lieut. Wilkes, as extending from the shores of the lands discovered by him near the Antarctic Circle. It was sufficiently evident that it was impossible to penetrate this mass of ice to the westward, as there was not even a crack or hole of water to be seen in any part of it. I therefore made up my mind to proceed along its edge to the southward, hoping to be able afterwards to pursue a westerly course to the Magnetic Pole, which we still continued to approach very considerably, the dip now amounting to 87° 39′.
At noon we were in lat. 74° 15′ S. by our reckoning, but the observation gave only 74°, showing that we had been driven to the northward by a current, which was the more mortifying as we had already begun to congratulate ourselves in the