Chap. XII.]
CAPE SEYMOUR.
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1843
places to the northward of Cape Gage, where glaciers fill the valleys and project into the sea.
Between Cape Purvis and Cape Corry land was indistinctly visible; but Mount Percy, at a distance of sixty miles, formed a conspicuous and beautiful object.
At 11 p.m. we rounded Cape Seymour, and bore away before a fresh breeze to the S.S.W., between a continuous line of grounded bergs and the land, the channel being about two miles broad.
At 3 a.m., after a run of eight leagues, the Jan. 7main pack was seen so close in with the land as to deter me from pushing the ships in between them whilst the wind was blowing from the northward. We therefore hauled off on the port tack, to await a more favourable opportunity, which soon afterwards occurred; the wind at 7.30. suddenly shifting to the W.S.W., opened a passage between the pack and the land. We then beat along the coast, which at this part is formed of vertical icy cliffs, no part exceeding fifty, and in some places not twenty feet high, the continuation of the covering of Snow Hill, which on this side descends with a gradual slope to the sea, and, as on its southern side, without the smallest rock appearing through its brilliant surface. At noon we were in latitude 64° 34′ S., longitude 57° 10′ W., magnetic dip 63° 7′ S., variation 23° 20′ E. From this position we observed the land, or rather icy cliffs, turn suddenly away to the westward; and the fixed land ice attached to them extended in a deep