Feb. 23.
north-westward, and wait for more favourable weather.
At noon we were in latitude 77º 49′ S. and longitude 162º 36′ W., the wind veering to the eastward, we tacked at 1h 30m p.m. and stood towards the barrier, for with a leading wind we might approach it safely, as near as the loose ice which projected some distance from it would permit. Some bergs and heavy pieces of ice, with numerous stones and patches of soil on them, raised our expectations of soon seeing the land; but at 7 p.m., when we were within a mile and a half of the face of the barrier, our further progress was stopped by the belt of broken fragments at its foot, which were firmly cemented together by newly formed ice. As the Terror was some miles to the northward, we hove to until she came up to us, and whilst waiting for her we obtained soundings in two hundred and ninety fathoms, the deep sea clamms bringing up some green mud, intermixed with small volcanic stones. This depth of water would seem to prove that the outer edge of the barrier was not resting upon the ground; for by various measurements of its highest part, it was found to be only one hundred and seven feet above the sea, from which point it gradually diminished for about ten miles to the eastward, where it could not have been more than eighty feet; but beyond that distance it again rose higher.
The point at which we had approached it was on the east side of a bay between eight and nine miles
