blink of one of the larger bergs a long way off in the dark, but when it is a question of one of the smaller masses of ice, of which only an inconsiderable part rises above the surface, there is no such brightness, and therefore no warning.  A little lump like this is just as dangerous as a big berg; you run the same risks in a possible collision of knocking a hole in the bows or carrying away the rigging.  In these transitional regions, where the temperature of the water is always very low, the thermometer is a very doubtful guide.

The waters in which we were sailing are not yet so well known as to exclude the possibility of meeting with land.  Captain Colbeck, who commanded one of the relief ships sent south during Scott’s first expedition, came quite unexpectedly upon a little island to the east of Cape Adare; this island was afterwards named after Captain Scott.  When Captain Colbeck made his discovery, he was about on the course that has usually been taken by ships whose destination was within the limits of Ross Sea.  There is still a possibility that in going out of one’s course, voluntarily or involuntarily, one may find more groups of islands in that part.

On the current charts of the South Pacific there are marked several archipelagoes and islands, the position of which is not a little doubtful.  One of these —­ Emerald Island —­ is charted as lying almost directly in the course we had to follow to reach Hobart.  Captain Davis, who took Shackleton’s ship, the Nimrod, home to England in 1909, sailed, however, right over the point where Emerald Island should be found according to the chart without seeing anything of it.  If it exists at all, it is, at any rate, incorrectly charted.  In order to avoid its vicinity, and still more in order to get as far as possible to the west before we came into the westerly belt proper, we pressed on as much as we could for one hard week, or perhaps nearer two; but a continual north-west wind seemed for a long time to leave us only two disagreeable possibilities, either of drifting to the eastward, or of finding ourselves down in the drift-ice to the north of Wilkes Land.

Those weeks were a very severe trial of patience to the many on board who were burning with eagerness to get ashore with our news, and perhaps to hear some in return.  When the first three weeks of February were past, we were not much more than half-way; with anything like favourable conditions we ought to have arrived by that time.  The optimists always consoled us by saying that sooner or later there would be a change for the better, and at last it came.  A good spell of favourable wind took us at a bound well to the windward both of the doubtful Emerald Island and of the authentic Macquarie group to the north of it.  It may be mentioned in passing, that at the time we went by, the most southerly wireless telegraphy station in the world was located on one of the Macquarie Islands.  The installation belonged to Dr. Mawson’s Antarctic expedition.  Dr. Mawson also took with him apparatus for installing a station on the Antarctic Continent itself, but, so far as is known, no connection was accomplished the first year.