S., it was 24 deg. 31’ E. Soon after, the sky became clouded, and the air very cold.  We continued our course to the south, and passed a piece of weed covered with barnacles, which a brown albatross was picking off.  At ten o’clock, we passed a very large ice island; it was not less than three or four miles in circuit.  Several more being seen a-head, and the weather becoming foggy, we hauled the wind to the northward; but in less than two hours, the weather cleared up, and we again stood south.

On the 30th, at four o’clock in the morning, we perceived the clouds, over the horizon to the south, to be of an unusual snow-white brightness, which we knew denounced our approach to field-ice.  Soon after, it was seen from the top-mast-head; and at eight o’clock, we were close to its edge.  It extended east and west, far beyond the reach of our sight.  In the situation we were in, just the southern half of our horizon was illuminated, by the rays of light reflected from the ice, to a considerable height.  Ninety-seven ice hills were distinctly seen within the field, besides those on the outside; many of them very large, and looking like a ridge of mountains, rising one above another till they were lost in the clouds.  The outer or northern edge of this immense field, was composed of loose or broken ice close packed together, so that it was not possible for any thing to enter it.  This was about a mile broad, within which, was solid ice in one continued compact body.  It was rather low and flat (except the hills), but seemed to increase in height, as you traced it to the south; in which direction it extended beyond our sight.  Such mountains of ice as these, I believe, were never seen in the Greenland seas, at least, not that I ever heard or read of, so that we cannot draw a comparison between the ice here and there.

It must be allowed, that these prodigious ice mountains must add such additional weight to the ice fields which inclose them, as cannot but make a great difference between the navigating this icy sea and that of Greenland.

I will not say it was impossible any where to get farther to the south; but the attempting it would have been a dangerous and rash enterprise, and what, I believe, no man in my situation would have thought of.  It was, indeed, my opinion, as well as the opinion of most on board, that this ice extended quite to the pole, or perhaps joined on some land, to which it had been fixed from the earliest time; and that it is here, that is to the south of this parallel, where all the ice we find scattered up and down to the north, is first formed, and afterwards broken off by gales of wind, or other causes, and brought to the north by the currents, which we always found to set in that direction in the high latitudes.  As we drew near this ice some penguins were heard, but none seen; and but few other birds or any other thing that could induce us to think any land was near.  And yet I think, there must be some to the south behind