The air temperature was 37° Fahr., pleasantly warm, and the water temperature 29° Fahr.  We continued to advance through fine long leads till 4 a.m. on December 17, when the ice became difficult again.  Very large floes of six-months-old ice lay close together.  Some of these floes presented a square mile of unbroken surface, and among them were patches of thin ice and several floes of heavy old ice.  Many bergs were in sight, and the course became devious.  The ship was blocked at one point by a wedge-shaped piece of floe, but we put the ice-anchor through it, towed it astern, and proceeded through the gap.  Steering under these conditions required muscle as well as nerve.  There was a clatter aft during the afternoon, and Hussey, who was at the wheel, explained that “The wheel spun round and threw me over the top of it!” The noon position was lat. 62° 13´ S., long. 18° 53´ W., and the run for the preceding twenty-four hours had been 32 miles in a south-westerly direction.  We saw three blue whales during the day and one emperor penguin, a 58-lb. bird, which was added to the larder.

The morning of December 18 found the ‘Endurance’ proceeding amongst large floes with thin ice between them.  The leads were few.  There was a northerly breeze with occasional snow-flurries.  We secured three crab-eater seals—­two cows and a bull.  The bull was a fine specimen, nearly white all over and 9 ft. 3 in. long; he weighed 600 lbs.  Shortly before noon further progress was barred by heavy pack, and we put an ice-anchor on the floe and banked the fires.  I had been prepared for evil conditions in the Weddell Sea, but had hoped that in December and January, at any rate, the pack would be loose, even if no open water was to be found.  What we were actually encountering was fairly dense pack of a very obstinate character.  Pack-ice might be described as a gigantic and interminable jigsaw-puzzle devised by nature.  The parts of the puzzle in loose pack have floated slightly apart and become disarranged; at numerous places they have pressed together again; as the pack gets closer the congested areas grow larger and the parts are jammed harder till finally it becomes “close pack,” when the whole of the jigsaw-puzzle becomes jammed to such an extent that with care and labour it can be traversed in every direction on foot.  Where the parts do not fit closely there is, of course, open water, which freezes over, in a few hours after giving off volumes of “frost-smoke.”  In obedience to renewed pressure this young ice “rafts,” so forming double thicknesses of a toffee-like consistency.  Again the opposing edges of heavy floes rear up in slow and almost silent conflict, till high “hedgerows” are formed round each part of the puzzle.  At the junction of several floes chaotic areas of piled-up blocks and masses of ice are formed.  Sometimes 5-ft. to 6-ft. piles of evenly shaped blocks of ice are seen so neatly laid that it seems impossible for them to be Nature’s work.  Again, a winding