ice; we therefore wore round, hove to, and sounded in two hundred and sixty fathoms. I made the signal for Captain Crozier to come on board, who concurring in opinion with me of the utter impracticability of penetrating the dense pack between us and the barrier, I determined to devote a few more days to tracing its extent to the eastward; for although we could not hope to be able to get much further to the southward so late in the season, yet we knew the land-ice must still be clearing away from the shores at the most probable place of our being able to approach most nearly to the magnetic pole. Our dead reckoning since noon placed us in latitude 78° 3′, the Terror's 78° 5′; we therefore assumed 78° 4′ as the true latitude, which proved to be the highest attained this season; the face of the barrier at this part was therefore in 78¼° S.; it was about one hundred and sixty feet high, and extended as far to the east and west as the eye could discern, continuing in one unbroken line from Cape Crozier, a distance of two hundred and fifty miles.
At 10 p.m. we made sail to the northwest, to get clear of the pack, and by midnight were again in open water. I obtained an observation of the sun at 28 minutes after midnight, which gave the latitude 77° 56′ S., agreeing with the reckoning of the preceding and subsequent noon in placing our point of furthest south in latitude 78° 4′; at the same time an observation was made in the Terror, which, also, when reduced back to