It has happened at night that I have seen the ice-blink as far off as eight miles, and then there is nothing to fear; but sometimes in the middle of the day we have sailed close to icebergs that have only been seen a few minutes before we were right on them.  As the voyage was long, we sailed as fast as we could, as a rule; but on two or three nights we had to reduce our way to a minimum, as we could not see much farther than the end of the bowsprit.

After two or three weeks’ sailing the icebergs began gradually to decrease, and I hoped we should soon come to the end of them; but on Sunday, March 5, when it was fairly clear, we saw about midday a whole lot of big bergs ahead.  One of the watch below, who had just come on deck, exclaimed:  “What the devil is this beastly mess you fellows have got into?” He might well ask, for in the course of that afternoon we passed no less than about a hundred bergs.  They were big tabular bergs, all of the same height, about 100 feet, or about as high as the crow’s-nest of the Fram.  The bergs were not the least worn, but looked as if they had calved quite recently.  As I said, it was clear enough, we even got an observation that day (lat. 61deg.  S., long. 150deg.  W.), and as we had a west wind, we twisted quite elegantly past one iceberg after another.  The sea, which during the morning had been high enough for the spray to dash over the tops of the bergs, gradually went down, and in the evening, when we were well to leeward of them all, it was as smooth as if we had been in harbour.  In the course of the night we passed a good many more bergs, and the next day we only saw about twenty.

In the various descriptions of voyages in these waters, opinions are divided as to the temperature of the water falling in the neighbourhood of icebergs.  That it falls steadily as one approaches the pack-ice is certain enough, but whether it falls for one or a few scattered icebergs, no doubt depends on circumstances.

One night at 12 o’clock we had a temperature in the water of 34.1deg.  F., at 4 a.m. 33.8deg.  F., and at 8 a.m. 33.6deg.  F.; at 6 a.m. we passed an iceberg.  At 12 noon the temperature had risen to 33.9deg.  F. In this case one might say that the temperature gave warning, but, as a rule, in high latitudes it has been constant both before and after passing an iceberg.

On Christmas Eve, 1911, when on our second trip southward we saw the first real iceberg, the temperature of the water fell in four hours from 35.6deg.  F. to 32.7deg.  F., which was the temperature when the bergs were passed, after which it rose rather rapidly to 35deg.  F.

In the west wind belt I believe one can tell with some degree of certainty when one is approaching ice.  In the middle of November, 1911, between Prince Edward Island and the Crozet Islands (about lat. 47deg.  S.) the temperature fell.  Towards morning I remarked to someone:  “The temperature of the water is falling as if we were getting near the ice.”  On the forenoon of the same day we sailed past a very small berg; the temperature again rose to the normal, and we met no more ice until Christmas Eve.